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"content": "\u003cp>As the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-unified-school-district\">San Francisco Unified School District\u003c/a> still has a long-term budget problem despite widespread cuts, it could look to save money by revisiting the way it handles special education — an idea that many families are hesitant to get their hopes up for but desperately want to believe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amid dwindling enrollment and state funding, SFUSD is still hemorrhaging cash, spending outside its means this year, and expecting to run another deficit of nearly $60 million next year without restoring \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12044768/sf-school-district-unveils-balanced-budget-after-cutting-over-110-million-in-spending\">cut positions and services\u003c/a>. Superintendent Maria Su told reporters last month that one of the drivers of the district’s annual shortfalls is the ballooning cost of special education, particularly for the 12% or so of special education students who require services the district has opted to outsource.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SFUSD is federally mandated to be responsible for all students’ special education within its geographical region, or SELPA, but the district alone cannot provide all services. It has about 200 students in private school programs that enroll students with individualized learning plans (IEPs) whose needs cannot be met by their public school district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next year, SFUSD estimates that it will pay $42.1 million to these non-public school programs, along with other independent agencies and consultants that provide special education services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Su believes that expanding the district’s internal special education services could recoup some of this funding. It could also improve the learning experience for students who require nontraditional services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If SFUSD could find more options for kids like my son, families like [ours] would take it in a heartbeat,” said Havah Kelley, whose child has been in a non-public school program for three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11969382\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11969382\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/11132022_apmreports_soldastory312-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1709\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/11132022_apmreports_soldastory312-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/11132022_apmreports_soldastory312-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/11132022_apmreports_soldastory312-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/11132022_apmreports_soldastory312-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/11132022_apmreports_soldastory312-1536x1026.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/11132022_apmreports_soldastory312-2048x1367.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/11132022_apmreports_soldastory312-1920x1282.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Havah Kelley poses for a portrait on Nov. 13, 2022, near McLaren Park in San Francisco.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I want my son to go to a local public school,” she told KQED. “I want to be a part of that community. I want my son to be part of the community. I want him to meet friends who actually live in San Francisco and aren’t spread out, so he can never connect.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kelley’s son, who is entering ninth grade in the fall, has had an IEP since he was 3. He attended elementary school in a regular SFUSD classroom, but as he was gearing up for middle school, Kelley noticed him falling behind, despite the extra resources he had already received through the district’s special education department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was just not making progress,” she said. “COVID hit, and that really, really derailed us further. Staffing shortages hit, it was a culmination of many different things happening at once, but by … the beginning of sixth grade, I was very gravely concerned.”[aside postID=news_12044768 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-07-BL_qed.jpg']That summer, Kelley, who is a member of the district’s community advisory commission for special education, said she initiated the long, stressful process of moving her son into a non-public school program (NPS).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She requested a meeting with the special education team who’d worked with her family throughout her son’s education, and said she had to prove that the district couldn’t provide legally mandated resources, she told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once SFUSD officials agreed that Kelley’s son needed an NPS placement, the district referred her to one program, where she and her son went through an application process similar to a private school — written questionnaire, interviews and a school tour — before hearing whether he would be offered a spot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents don’t get much choice in which NPS their child attends, which can also stir up frustration and sometimes lead to costly lawsuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, Kelley said, SFUSD refers families to one school at a time, and at the end of the application process, the parent can only decide whether to accept or reject the placement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If they feel it’s the wrong fit, they start again from square one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very rarely a straight shot,” Kelley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A difficult path back to SFUSD\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California has 265 certified NPS programs. Some, like the one Kelley’s son attends, provide smaller student-to-teacher ratios and more individualized attention than SFUSD’s general education classrooms can offer, but less extensive services than some of its internal special day classes, which Kelley said would be too restrictive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others, such as Edgewood Community School, are geared toward students who need significant mental health support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008414\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12008414\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1336\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsGetty-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsGetty-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsGetty-1536x1026.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsGetty-1920x1283.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students from the San Francisco Unified School District return to their buses after a field trip in San Francisco on Sept. 13, 2012. \u003ccite>(Liz Hafalia/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco campus serves high school students who have been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, PTSD and other mental health conditions, according to program director Roberto Orozco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The class schedule that we create for the students is individualized to make sure that they’re able to make up for the lost credit that they may have not accrued throughout their high school careers,” he said, adding that when they come to Edgewood, “a lot of the students have been out of school for anywhere from months to sometimes years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Academic courses, coupled with in-house individual, group and family therapy and case management, are geared toward two tracks — one to graduate from Edgewood, and another to move to a general education classroom in SFUSD.[aside postID=news_12044911 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250618-NEWTEACHERHOUSING-09-BL-KQED.jpg']Orozco said that while seven students graduated from Edgewood last month, many are working toward returning to general education classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once progress has been made and maintained, we’re able to start having [students] go to a general education setting, where they’ll be there for about an hour,” he said. “They’ll come back, and then if it all goes well, after a month we increase the time … until finally the student is able to return to the least restrictive setting in their general education high school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year though, no students were able to step down from Edgewood’s program, which isn’t a unique problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When [my son] started, I was hopeful that he would go back to San Francisco for high school,” Kelley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She initially thought he would be out of the district for one to two years while he caught up after distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and got some targeted support. But next year will be her son’s fourth in an NPS.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s really, really hard,” she told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Outside services pose a major cost\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>To get to his school, Kelley’s son travels three hours round-trip each day. She said that in addition to isolating them from other SFUSD families, the commute has affected her son’s attendance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s exhausted having to get up at 5:30 [or] 5:45 in the morning and not getting home until almost 5 o’clock,” she said. That’s without participating in any extracurriculars or hanging around after school with friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Long travel days are also a strain on the district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046126\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046126\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFUSD-01-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFUSD-01-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFUSD-01-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFUSD-01-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Francisco Unified School District Administrative Offices in San Francisco on April 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>SFUSD is required to pay for transportation for students at NPS programs, which are spread throughout the state, often hours away from San Francisco. Only two of the state-approved programs are within city limits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Transportation often represents the biggest part of NPS programs’ cost to the district, Kelley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That price tag is getting higher, Su said, as more students require outside services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The reason why we’re spending so much money on special education is because we’re providing funding to serve our students outside of the district,” she said. “Imagine if we can serve these students inside the district, we can then keep these resources here.”[aside postID=news_12041122 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/05/240517-TKBilingualLearners-98-BL_qut-1020x680.jpg']In addition to transportation, the district pays for private school tuition, case managers who are SFUSD employees and serve as liaisons between the district and NPS schools, and for settlements to families who have sued the district over its inability to provide adequate services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When parents have conflicts with the district over their child’s IEP and the services they’re allotted, lawsuits can arise, Kelley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If a parent is upset about something … sometimes they just go straight for [legal action],” she said. “They’re just done and they don’t want to have these conversations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the parents win a settlement, they can enroll their student in a private or parochial school that the district has to pay for. Currently, there are about 400 special education students in the district’s region in these schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district is also in legal heat after a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sfusd-superintendent-special-education-20253658.php\">special education fiasco\u003c/a> left nearly 200 students without required teachers and services at the start of the school year. The misstep is estimated to cost the district more than $1.18 million to pay for the unmet services, plus legal fees and additional resources to determine the cause of the blunder and make amends with families.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Su turns focus to special education\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Su said now that she’s completed her first school year as the superintendent, working to balance a massive budget deficit and rebuild families’ trust, she’s looking at how special education — and possibly \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12010349/sf-school-closures-halted-for-now-but-districts-new-leader-will-be-tested\">school mergers and closures\u003c/a> — factor into the district’s future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What I’m going to do next year is review and survey all of our facilities and determine which facilities can be converted to transitional kindergarten classrooms and … which facilities can be used to serve our special education students,” she said. “Then at the end of the day … if we have to close or merge, we will determine that, but at a later time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12037008\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12037008\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Francisco Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Maria Su speaks during a press conference at the school district offices in San Francisco on April 21, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A review of SFUSD’s special education earlier this year by FCMAT, a financial company tasked with assisting California districts with financial management, recommended that the district assess where it might be able to shift kids whose NPS programs provide similar services into a district or county-operated class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While many special education regions cover multiple school districts, SFUSD is the only district in San Francisco’s geographic area. Because of this, it doesn’t look at county-operated special education programs the way others do, according to FCMAT’s analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County classes can be a placement between NPS and SFUSD-operated programs, offering different student-to-teacher ratios and levels of support for students with similar needs currently placed in various NPS programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This lack of differentiation does not occur in most other [special education areas], and it may be causing the SFUSD to miss an opportunity to meet students’ needs in a [district or county] class instead of placing them in a more expensive and restrictive environment like an NPS,” FCMAT Executive Director Mike Fine said in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our sense is that SFUSD could bring quite a few students back from an NPS, at a significant savings, but the specifics of this are well beyond our analysis,” he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oftentimes, as you’re looking at keeping students in [the] least restrictive environment, you can create programs that have different class size ratios, different types of support from specialists, and maybe perhaps serve more students in a district program as opposed to a non-public school,” Carolynne Beno, a FCMAT analyst, told SFUSD’s board of education in March.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12004914\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12004914\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240916-UNIONSFSCHOOLCLOSURES-33-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240916-UNIONSFSCHOOLCLOSURES-33-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240916-UNIONSFSCHOOLCLOSURES-33-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240916-UNIONSFSCHOOLCLOSURES-33-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240916-UNIONSFSCHOOLCLOSURES-33-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240916-UNIONSFSCHOOLCLOSURES-33-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240916-UNIONSFSCHOOLCLOSURES-33-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Parent Havah Kelley speaks during a press conference held by the United Educators of San Francisco outside of the San Francisco Unified School District offices on Sept. 16, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Although some students will continue to need services the district can’t provide, Kelley said the idea of returning to a district school is hopeful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I really want for SFUSD to have more options for kids like my son who are just a little more complicated,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said that expanded in-district options would help catch some of the kids like hers, who “fall through the cracks” of SFUSD’s offerings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“His needs were more expensive than [general education] could provide, but [special day classes] were not appropriate because his needs were not as severe in some cases for [that] model, so it would be too restrictive,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How the district plans to expand its options for special education beyond identifying classrooms isn’t yet clear, but the district said it is “committed to transforming how we support our students, families and staff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The structural and systemic improvements that are already underway are not just necessary — they are long overdue, especially given the threats against the U.S. Department of Education,” district officials said in a statement. “We will continue to push forward with urgency and unwavering dedication.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"title": "SFUSD Pays Millions for Special Ed. This Change Could Save Money — and Help Families | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>As the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-unified-school-district\">San Francisco Unified School District\u003c/a> still has a long-term budget problem despite widespread cuts, it could look to save money by revisiting the way it handles special education — an idea that many families are hesitant to get their hopes up for but desperately want to believe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Amid dwindling enrollment and state funding, SFUSD is still hemorrhaging cash, spending outside its means this year, and expecting to run another deficit of nearly $60 million next year without restoring \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12044768/sf-school-district-unveils-balanced-budget-after-cutting-over-110-million-in-spending\">cut positions and services\u003c/a>. Superintendent Maria Su told reporters last month that one of the drivers of the district’s annual shortfalls is the ballooning cost of special education, particularly for the 12% or so of special education students who require services the district has opted to outsource.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SFUSD is federally mandated to be responsible for all students’ special education within its geographical region, or SELPA, but the district alone cannot provide all services. It has about 200 students in private school programs that enroll students with individualized learning plans (IEPs) whose needs cannot be met by their public school district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next year, SFUSD estimates that it will pay $42.1 million to these non-public school programs, along with other independent agencies and consultants that provide special education services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Su believes that expanding the district’s internal special education services could recoup some of this funding. It could also improve the learning experience for students who require nontraditional services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If SFUSD could find more options for kids like my son, families like [ours] would take it in a heartbeat,” said Havah Kelley, whose child has been in a non-public school program for three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11969382\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11969382\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/11132022_apmreports_soldastory312-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1709\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/11132022_apmreports_soldastory312-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/11132022_apmreports_soldastory312-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/11132022_apmreports_soldastory312-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/11132022_apmreports_soldastory312-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/11132022_apmreports_soldastory312-1536x1026.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/11132022_apmreports_soldastory312-2048x1367.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2023/12/11132022_apmreports_soldastory312-1920x1282.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Havah Kelley poses for a portrait on Nov. 13, 2022, near McLaren Park in San Francisco.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“I want my son to go to a local public school,” she told KQED. “I want to be a part of that community. I want my son to be part of the community. I want him to meet friends who actually live in San Francisco and aren’t spread out, so he can never connect.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Kelley’s son, who is entering ninth grade in the fall, has had an IEP since he was 3. He attended elementary school in a regular SFUSD classroom, but as he was gearing up for middle school, Kelley noticed him falling behind, despite the extra resources he had already received through the district’s special education department.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He was just not making progress,” she said. “COVID hit, and that really, really derailed us further. Staffing shortages hit, it was a culmination of many different things happening at once, but by … the beginning of sixth grade, I was very gravely concerned.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>That summer, Kelley, who is a member of the district’s community advisory commission for special education, said she initiated the long, stressful process of moving her son into a non-public school program (NPS).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She requested a meeting with the special education team who’d worked with her family throughout her son’s education, and said she had to prove that the district couldn’t provide legally mandated resources, she told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Once SFUSD officials agreed that Kelley’s son needed an NPS placement, the district referred her to one program, where she and her son went through an application process similar to a private school — written questionnaire, interviews and a school tour — before hearing whether he would be offered a spot.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents don’t get much choice in which NPS their child attends, which can also stir up frustration and sometimes lead to costly lawsuits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Instead, Kelley said, SFUSD refers families to one school at a time, and at the end of the application process, the parent can only decide whether to accept or reject the placement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If they feel it’s the wrong fit, they start again from square one.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s very rarely a straight shot,” Kelley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A difficult path back to SFUSD\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California has 265 certified NPS programs. Some, like the one Kelley’s son attends, provide smaller student-to-teacher ratios and more individualized attention than SFUSD’s general education classrooms can offer, but less extensive services than some of its internal special day classes, which Kelley said would be too restrictive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Others, such as Edgewood Community School, are geared toward students who need significant mental health support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008414\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12008414\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1336\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsGetty-800x534.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsGetty-1020x681.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsGetty-1536x1026.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsGetty-1920x1283.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students from the San Francisco Unified School District return to their buses after a field trip in San Francisco on Sept. 13, 2012. \u003ccite>(Liz Hafalia/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco campus serves high school students who have been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, PTSD and other mental health conditions, according to program director Roberto Orozco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The class schedule that we create for the students is individualized to make sure that they’re able to make up for the lost credit that they may have not accrued throughout their high school careers,” he said, adding that when they come to Edgewood, “a lot of the students have been out of school for anywhere from months to sometimes years.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Academic courses, coupled with in-house individual, group and family therapy and case management, are geared toward two tracks — one to graduate from Edgewood, and another to move to a general education classroom in SFUSD.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Orozco said that while seven students graduated from Edgewood last month, many are working toward returning to general education classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once progress has been made and maintained, we’re able to start having [students] go to a general education setting, where they’ll be there for about an hour,” he said. “They’ll come back, and then if it all goes well, after a month we increase the time … until finally the student is able to return to the least restrictive setting in their general education high school.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>This year though, no students were able to step down from Edgewood’s program, which isn’t a unique problem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When [my son] started, I was hopeful that he would go back to San Francisco for high school,” Kelley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She initially thought he would be out of the district for one to two years while he caught up after distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic and got some targeted support. But next year will be her son’s fourth in an NPS.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s really, really hard,” she told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Outside services pose a major cost\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>To get to his school, Kelley’s son travels three hours round-trip each day. She said that in addition to isolating them from other SFUSD families, the commute has affected her son’s attendance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“He’s exhausted having to get up at 5:30 [or] 5:45 in the morning and not getting home until almost 5 o’clock,” she said. That’s without participating in any extracurriculars or hanging around after school with friends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Long travel days are also a strain on the district.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046126\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046126\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFUSD-01-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFUSD-01-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFUSD-01-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFUSD-01-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Francisco Unified School District Administrative Offices in San Francisco on April 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>SFUSD is required to pay for transportation for students at NPS programs, which are spread throughout the state, often hours away from San Francisco. Only two of the state-approved programs are within city limits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Transportation often represents the biggest part of NPS programs’ cost to the district, Kelley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That price tag is getting higher, Su said, as more students require outside services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The reason why we’re spending so much money on special education is because we’re providing funding to serve our students outside of the district,” she said. “Imagine if we can serve these students inside the district, we can then keep these resources here.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>In addition to transportation, the district pays for private school tuition, case managers who are SFUSD employees and serve as liaisons between the district and NPS schools, and for settlements to families who have sued the district over its inability to provide adequate services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When parents have conflicts with the district over their child’s IEP and the services they’re allotted, lawsuits can arise, Kelley said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If a parent is upset about something … sometimes they just go straight for [legal action],” she said. “They’re just done and they don’t want to have these conversations.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>If the parents win a settlement, they can enroll their student in a private or parochial school that the district has to pay for. Currently, there are about 400 special education students in the district’s region in these schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district is also in legal heat after a \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sfusd-superintendent-special-education-20253658.php\">special education fiasco\u003c/a> left nearly 200 students without required teachers and services at the start of the school year. The misstep is estimated to cost the district more than $1.18 million to pay for the unmet services, plus legal fees and additional resources to determine the cause of the blunder and make amends with families.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Su turns focus to special education\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Su said now that she’s completed her first school year as the superintendent, working to balance a massive budget deficit and rebuild families’ trust, she’s looking at how special education — and possibly \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12010349/sf-school-closures-halted-for-now-but-districts-new-leader-will-be-tested\">school mergers and closures\u003c/a> — factor into the district’s future.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What I’m going to do next year is review and survey all of our facilities and determine which facilities can be converted to transitional kindergarten classrooms and … which facilities can be used to serve our special education students,” she said. “Then at the end of the day … if we have to close or merge, we will determine that, but at a later time.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12037008\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12037008\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Francisco Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Maria Su speaks during a press conference at the school district offices in San Francisco on April 21, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A review of SFUSD’s special education earlier this year by FCMAT, a financial company tasked with assisting California districts with financial management, recommended that the district assess where it might be able to shift kids whose NPS programs provide similar services into a district or county-operated class.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While many special education regions cover multiple school districts, SFUSD is the only district in San Francisco’s geographic area. Because of this, it doesn’t look at county-operated special education programs the way others do, according to FCMAT’s analysis.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>County classes can be a placement between NPS and SFUSD-operated programs, offering different student-to-teacher ratios and levels of support for students with similar needs currently placed in various NPS programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This lack of differentiation does not occur in most other [special education areas], and it may be causing the SFUSD to miss an opportunity to meet students’ needs in a [district or county] class instead of placing them in a more expensive and restrictive environment like an NPS,” FCMAT Executive Director Mike Fine said in an email.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our sense is that SFUSD could bring quite a few students back from an NPS, at a significant savings, but the specifics of this are well beyond our analysis,” he added.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Oftentimes, as you’re looking at keeping students in [the] least restrictive environment, you can create programs that have different class size ratios, different types of support from specialists, and maybe perhaps serve more students in a district program as opposed to a non-public school,” Carolynne Beno, a FCMAT analyst, told SFUSD’s board of education in March.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12004914\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12004914\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240916-UNIONSFSCHOOLCLOSURES-33-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240916-UNIONSFSCHOOLCLOSURES-33-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240916-UNIONSFSCHOOLCLOSURES-33-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240916-UNIONSFSCHOOLCLOSURES-33-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240916-UNIONSFSCHOOLCLOSURES-33-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240916-UNIONSFSCHOOLCLOSURES-33-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/09/240916-UNIONSFSCHOOLCLOSURES-33-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Parent Havah Kelley speaks during a press conference held by the United Educators of San Francisco outside of the San Francisco Unified School District offices on Sept. 16, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Although some students will continue to need services the district can’t provide, Kelley said the idea of returning to a district school is hopeful.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I really want for SFUSD to have more options for kids like my son who are just a little more complicated,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said that expanded in-district options would help catch some of the kids like hers, who “fall through the cracks” of SFUSD’s offerings.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“His needs were more expensive than [general education] could provide, but [special day classes] were not appropriate because his needs were not as severe in some cases for [that] model, so it would be too restrictive,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>How the district plans to expand its options for special education beyond identifying classrooms isn’t yet clear, but the district said it is “committed to transforming how we support our students, families and staff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The structural and systemic improvements that are already underway are not just necessary — they are long overdue, especially given the threats against the U.S. Department of Education,” district officials said in a statement. “We will continue to push forward with urgency and unwavering dedication.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "sfusd-was-a-pioneer-in-ethnic-studies-now-the-program-could-be-put-on-pause",
"title": "SFUSD Was a Pioneer in Ethnic Studies. Now the Program Could Be Put on Pause",
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"headTitle": "SFUSD Was a Pioneer in Ethnic Studies. Now the Program Could Be Put on Pause | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 3:45 p.m. Friday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After months of mounting pushback, San Francisco’s superintendent of schools is in talks to pause the district’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/ethnic-studies\">ethnic studies\u003c/a> program, according to teachers and a member of the school board who have raised concerns over the move.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program — which covers topics including identity, white supremacy, sexuality and social movements — has come under increasing scrutiny from some parents and a national education group that have criticized its course materials as biased and “activist-driven.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Superintendent Maria Su is considering reassigning ninth graders enrolled in the course next fall while the district conducts an audit of the curriculum, according to ethnic studies teachers and school board member Matt Alexander.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They say that the move would deviate from the district’s past protocols for handling curriculum changes and raises concerns about the future of the course, which has been heralded as a success for more than a decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a course that’s worked for a very long time,” Alexander said. “There doesn’t seem to be any reason for a pause, and it’s something that’s very effective. In fact, it may be the only initiative that we have that actually increases college and career outcomes for students.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>More than a decade of ethnic studies\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco Unified School District became one of the first in the nation to introduce ethnic studies after its board of education called for creating a dedicated course in 2008. The field, which has roots in Bay Area \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11830384/how-the-longest-student-strike-in-u-s-history-created-ethnic-studies\">student activism\u003c/a> in the 1960s, includes and examines the experiences of minorities in the United States, typically focusing on the experiences of Indigenous people, as well as Black, Latino and Asian Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2010, SFUSD launched a pilot program as an elective for high schoolers, which has been offered on all campuses since the 2015–16 school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11918617\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11918617\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/IMG_8133.jpg\" alt=\"Children and adults hold signs at a demonstration to save a Filipino language program.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/IMG_8133.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/IMG_8133-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/IMG_8133-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/IMG_8133-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/IMG_8133-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A group of students and community members demonstrates outside SFUSD headquarters on June 7, 2022, to protest the district’s plan to downsize the Filipino language program at Longfellow Elementary School. \u003ccite>(Julia McEvoy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://ed.stanford.edu/news/ninth-grade-ethnic-studies-helped-students-years-stanford-researchers-find\">2021 study\u003c/a> by Stanford’s Graduate School of Education raised the program’s profile when it found that low-achieving students who participated in SFUSD’s course were more likely to attend and be engaged in school, had higher probabilities of graduating and were more likely to go to college. And a new draft study from UC Irvine this year shows that over the 15 years SFUSD has offered the class, taking ethnic studies in ninth grade boosted the GPAs of students throughout their high school careers, especially among those who identify as Black and Latino.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 2021 study persuaded policymakers at the state and local levels. That year, California lawmakers enacted a mandate for public schools to require a semester of ethnic studies, which is set to take effect in 2025. That same year, the San Francisco school board passed legislation making the two-semester course a graduation requirement, beginning with ninth graders entering high school in the fall of 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But one year after lawmakers passed those measures, three of the school board members who backed the SFUSD plan — and other social justice-oriented changes within the district, including renaming schools and eliminating merit-based admissions at Lowell High School — were overwhelmingly recalled. The contentious vote followed a swell of criticism from parents, particularly in the Asian American community.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Parents and advocacy groups push back\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Samantha Aguirre, who has taught ethnic studies in SFUSD since 2015, said she had not heard widespread pushback specifically about the course until this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One parent, Vivian Safrin, began raising concerns about the curriculum to district officials last year, after she said she was shown class materials that concerned her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036911\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036911\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Francisco Unified School District Administrative Offices in San Francisco on April 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“[Ethnic studies] is supposed to be an opportunity for students to learn about the histories, cultures, struggles and contributions of ethnic groups in California,” she said. “And at this time, the course in San Francisco is a lot of one-sided political dogma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our kids don’t have context to be able to analyze this material, given that it is being taught before world history, before U.S. history,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Criticism of the course didn’t break into the mainstream until May, though, following media coverage and a report from a national parents’ group about the class’ content.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents Defending Education, which said it aims to protect school districts from “activists imposing harmful agendas,” published an “incident report” criticizing the ethnic studies curriculum’s focus on “white supremacy culture” and support for undocumented immigrants.[aside postID=news_12044768 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-07-BL_qed.jpg']Weeks later, an \u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/2025/05/30/sfusd-new-ethnic-studies-mandate/\">article\u003c/a> published in the \u003cem>San Francisco Standard\u003c/em> said that one lesson plan viewed by parents asked students to role-play as Israeli soldiers putting Palestinians into refugee camps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sfusd-ethic-studies-school-20353723.php\">reported\u003c/a> that a lesson about social movements included as an example the Red Guards, an often-violent militant youth movement that backed Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong during the country’s cultural revolution in the 1960s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aguirre, along with SFUSD ethnic studies teacher Sarita Lavin and a third who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation since they are not tenured, all told KQED they had never used, or heard of any of their colleagues using, those materials in their classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>None of the district’s publicly posted ethnic studies materials currently reference such lesson plans, though at least one of the unit curriculum slide decks contains broken links to slides that it said have been deleted, and it’s unclear when or if changes have been made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That is not something as an ethnic studies department that we are promoting or teaching en masse,” Lavin said. “I think that that’s just been wildly overblown.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046354\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046354\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/001_KQED_MichaelRosenbergBalboaHS_04202023_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/001_KQED_MichaelRosenbergBalboaHS_04202023_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/001_KQED_MichaelRosenbergBalboaHS_04202023_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/001_KQED_MichaelRosenbergBalboaHS_04202023_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Student drawings hang on the wall of a classroom at Balboa High School in San Francisco on April 20, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And not all families have had negative experiences with ethnic studies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maria Elena Francis said that when her children took the course, they came home from school feeling like they saw themselves reflected in their curriculum for one of the first times ever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Both of my children are Puerto Rican, Chicano and Indigenous, so they’re multiracial, multi-ethnic, and don’t often hear their different histories in a classroom,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her son is a rising 11th grader, and her daughter, who took the honors course when she was in high school, graduated from UC Berkeley last month with an ethnic studies degree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was important to me, it was important to my husband that we saw them coming back and saying, ‘We learned about this and I made this connection with this person,’” she said. “This program did for my children what I did not have as a student in SFUSD. I had never felt that way … and I’m so glad that my children had a different experience.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘We were in the middle of the process’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The teachers who spoke with KQED acknowledged that one of many parents’ resounding concerns with the class was valid: a standardized curriculum for it isn’t complete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Aguirre, in the summer of 2021, amid the wider push to expand ethnic studies requirements in the district and across the state, she and other teachers were asked to participate in a working group to develop and vet a more standardized curriculum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046126\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046126\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFUSD-01-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFUSD-01-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFUSD-01-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFUSD-01-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Francisco Unified School District Administrative Offices in San Francisco on April 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They split into small cohorts focused on each of the course’s four units, swapped and refined lesson plans, and came up with a draft for each of the class’s sections throughout the summers of 2021 and 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said the working group had planned to gather to assess their first drafts, give each other feedback and make further changes before delivering a final product.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that never happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After the summer of 2022, there was no more money or funding to keep doing the process of making the pilot curriculum,” she said.[aside postID=news_12036406 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250417-HIGHEREDPROTESTS-08-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg']The work was cut short amid the return to classrooms and mass exodus of district employees after the COVID-19 pandemic and a growing budget deficit, she told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What’s available right now on the website when you look at SFUSD curriculum is a lot of our draft work,” Aguirre said. “We were in the middle of the process. Project specialists went in and kind of just made it presentable and put it out there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those drafts — in the form of Google slide presentations for each of the class’s four units — include writing prompts, in-class group projects, links to articles and external resources that align with the class’s broader focus areas. The specific materials, Aguirre said, are suggestions, not requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is no standardized curriculum for the course, nor is there one for any of the district’s history classes, Aguirre said. Instead, teachers are required to teach based on a bullet-point list of content standards handed down by the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not a curriculum … that doesn’t exist,” she said, adding that the textbook she’s been using in her world history courses was developed 20 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Pausing the course\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Despite the pushback that’s plagued the end of the school year, the educators said they went into the summer working on updates to their lesson plans and preparing to teach ethnic studies again in the fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Then, about last week, I started hearing murmurs through the different ethnic study teachers that I was already working with over the summer that something might happen and that there was some sort of plan that things might not be the same in the fall,” said the teacher who requested anonymity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046361\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046361\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-06-BL_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-06-BL_qed-1.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-06-BL_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-06-BL_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Francisco Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Maria Su speaks during a press conference at the school district offices in San Francisco on April 21, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In a statement, a district spokesperson said, “The superintendent is currently in active discussions with principals and various stakeholders regarding high school curriculum and course sequencing for social studies, including Ethnic Studies, in fall 2025.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district said there was no anticipated change to the ethnic studies graduation requirement, which is mandated by school board policy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are committed to keeping our community informed as soon as we have an official update,” the statement said.[aside postID=news_12024203 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/11/005_KQED_StanfordGradUnion_05302023_qed-1020x680.jpg']Ethnic studies teachers told KQED they’re worried that a potential pause could turn into a repeal of the class altogether.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no more teachers on special assignment, nobody’s actually teaching ethnic studies, I’ve heard no talk of work groups, there’s no funding to get teachers together to keep on working on the curriculum … then you run into the same issue about access to resources,” Aguirre said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alexander said that an audit of the curriculum is a good idea — especially given valid concerns about certain class materials — but he believes the class should continue in the interim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said that a few years ago, when a group of parents approached the district with concerns about racism in the U.S. history curriculum, prompting an audit, “we didn’t stop teaching U.S. history.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We analyzed the curriculum and looked at ways that we could improve [it] and make them anti-racist in line with our values,” Alexander told KQED. “That to me seems like the appropriate response when this kind of thing comes up. I’ve never heard of stopping a course because of curriculum concerns.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A larger movement\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The decision comes as the state also seems to be backing away from its push to broaden ethnic studies education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation in 2021 mandating a semester in the course for all public school students beginning with the class of 2030, who will enter ninth grade in the fall. The same year, the state board of education adopted a model curriculum for the course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008270\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12008270\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/10.02.2024-SB1016-03-scaled-1-e1733162494960.jpg\" alt=\"A white man wearing a suit sits at a desk in an office, writing on a piece of paper with an American flag behind him.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1300\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 28, 2024. \u003ccite>(Photo Courtesy of Governor of California via Flickr)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>However, California’s current 2025–26 budget plan, which needs to be adopted by the end of this month, doesn’t include funding to implement ethnic studies statewide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the 2021 law that created the ethnic studies requirement, the state had to provide money to pay for course materials, teachers and training for the mandate to take effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, districts around the Bay Area and the state have also been backing off plans to expand the course in the face of \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/palo-alto-ethnic-studies-19588959.php\">legal challenges\u003c/a>, many of which have stemmed from Israel’s war in Gaza and concerns over allegations of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12008739/sfusd-antisemitism-training-sparks-controversy-as-some-educators-opt-for-alternative\">antisemitism in schools\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab715\">bill making its way through California’s Legislature\u003c/a> that aims to strengthen protections against discrimination and antisemitism has also been criticized by some teachers and \u003ca href=\"https://ca.cair.com/action/stop-ab-715-in-the-senate-defend-our-classrooms/\">advocacy groups\u003c/a> who worry it could prohibit students from learning about Palestine and human rights more broadly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The reason why ethnic studies was created in the 1960s in San Francisco was because of the lack of education for students of color about their own identities,” Lavin said. Without ethnic studies, she asked, “Where exactly are those students supposed to get their representation?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 3:45 p.m. Friday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After months of mounting pushback, San Francisco’s superintendent of schools is in talks to pause the district’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/ethnic-studies\">ethnic studies\u003c/a> program, according to teachers and a member of the school board who have raised concerns over the move.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program — which covers topics including identity, white supremacy, sexuality and social movements — has come under increasing scrutiny from some parents and a national education group that have criticized its course materials as biased and “activist-driven.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Now, Superintendent Maria Su is considering reassigning ninth graders enrolled in the course next fall while the district conducts an audit of the curriculum, according to ethnic studies teachers and school board member Matt Alexander.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They say that the move would deviate from the district’s past protocols for handling curriculum changes and raises concerns about the future of the course, which has been heralded as a success for more than a decade.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have a course that’s worked for a very long time,” Alexander said. “There doesn’t seem to be any reason for a pause, and it’s something that’s very effective. In fact, it may be the only initiative that we have that actually increases college and career outcomes for students.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>More than a decade of ethnic studies\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The San Francisco Unified School District became one of the first in the nation to introduce ethnic studies after its board of education called for creating a dedicated course in 2008. The field, which has roots in Bay Area \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11830384/how-the-longest-student-strike-in-u-s-history-created-ethnic-studies\">student activism\u003c/a> in the 1960s, includes and examines the experiences of minorities in the United States, typically focusing on the experiences of Indigenous people, as well as Black, Latino and Asian Americans.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2010, SFUSD launched a pilot program as an elective for high schoolers, which has been offered on all campuses since the 2015–16 school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_11918617\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-11918617\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/IMG_8133.jpg\" alt=\"Children and adults hold signs at a demonstration to save a Filipino language program.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1440\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/IMG_8133.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/IMG_8133-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/IMG_8133-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/IMG_8133-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2022/06/IMG_8133-1536x1152.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A group of students and community members demonstrates outside SFUSD headquarters on June 7, 2022, to protest the district’s plan to downsize the Filipino language program at Longfellow Elementary School. \u003ccite>(Julia McEvoy/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://ed.stanford.edu/news/ninth-grade-ethnic-studies-helped-students-years-stanford-researchers-find\">2021 study\u003c/a> by Stanford’s Graduate School of Education raised the program’s profile when it found that low-achieving students who participated in SFUSD’s course were more likely to attend and be engaged in school, had higher probabilities of graduating and were more likely to go to college. And a new draft study from UC Irvine this year shows that over the 15 years SFUSD has offered the class, taking ethnic studies in ninth grade boosted the GPAs of students throughout their high school careers, especially among those who identify as Black and Latino.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 2021 study persuaded policymakers at the state and local levels. That year, California lawmakers enacted a mandate for public schools to require a semester of ethnic studies, which is set to take effect in 2025. That same year, the San Francisco school board passed legislation making the two-semester course a graduation requirement, beginning with ninth graders entering high school in the fall of 2024.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But one year after lawmakers passed those measures, three of the school board members who backed the SFUSD plan — and other social justice-oriented changes within the district, including renaming schools and eliminating merit-based admissions at Lowell High School — were overwhelmingly recalled. The contentious vote followed a swell of criticism from parents, particularly in the Asian American community.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Parents and advocacy groups push back\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Samantha Aguirre, who has taught ethnic studies in SFUSD since 2015, said she had not heard widespread pushback specifically about the course until this year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One parent, Vivian Safrin, began raising concerns about the curriculum to district officials last year, after she said she was shown class materials that concerned her.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036911\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036911\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Francisco Unified School District Administrative Offices in San Francisco on April 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“[Ethnic studies] is supposed to be an opportunity for students to learn about the histories, cultures, struggles and contributions of ethnic groups in California,” she said. “And at this time, the course in San Francisco is a lot of one-sided political dogma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Our kids don’t have context to be able to analyze this material, given that it is being taught before world history, before U.S. history,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Criticism of the course didn’t break into the mainstream until May, though, following media coverage and a report from a national parents’ group about the class’ content.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents Defending Education, which said it aims to protect school districts from “activists imposing harmful agendas,” published an “incident report” criticizing the ethnic studies curriculum’s focus on “white supremacy culture” and support for undocumented immigrants.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Weeks later, an \u003ca href=\"https://sfstandard.com/2025/05/30/sfusd-new-ethnic-studies-mandate/\">article\u003c/a> published in the \u003cem>San Francisco Standard\u003c/em> said that one lesson plan viewed by parents asked students to role-play as Israeli soldiers putting Palestinians into refugee camps.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003cem>San Francisco Chronicle \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sfusd-ethic-studies-school-20353723.php\">reported\u003c/a> that a lesson about social movements included as an example the Red Guards, an often-violent militant youth movement that backed Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong during the country’s cultural revolution in the 1960s.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Aguirre, along with SFUSD ethnic studies teacher Sarita Lavin and a third who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation since they are not tenured, all told KQED they had never used, or heard of any of their colleagues using, those materials in their classrooms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>None of the district’s publicly posted ethnic studies materials currently reference such lesson plans, though at least one of the unit curriculum slide decks contains broken links to slides that it said have been deleted, and it’s unclear when or if changes have been made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That is not something as an ethnic studies department that we are promoting or teaching en masse,” Lavin said. “I think that that’s just been wildly overblown.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046354\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046354\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/001_KQED_MichaelRosenbergBalboaHS_04202023_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/001_KQED_MichaelRosenbergBalboaHS_04202023_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/001_KQED_MichaelRosenbergBalboaHS_04202023_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/001_KQED_MichaelRosenbergBalboaHS_04202023_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Student drawings hang on the wall of a classroom at Balboa High School in San Francisco on April 20, 2023. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>And not all families have had negative experiences with ethnic studies.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maria Elena Francis said that when her children took the course, they came home from school feeling like they saw themselves reflected in their curriculum for one of the first times ever.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Both of my children are Puerto Rican, Chicano and Indigenous, so they’re multiracial, multi-ethnic, and don’t often hear their different histories in a classroom,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Her son is a rising 11th grader, and her daughter, who took the honors course when she was in high school, graduated from UC Berkeley last month with an ethnic studies degree.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It was important to me, it was important to my husband that we saw them coming back and saying, ‘We learned about this and I made this connection with this person,’” she said. “This program did for my children what I did not have as a student in SFUSD. I had never felt that way … and I’m so glad that my children had a different experience.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘We were in the middle of the process’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The teachers who spoke with KQED acknowledged that one of many parents’ resounding concerns with the class was valid: a standardized curriculum for it isn’t complete.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to Aguirre, in the summer of 2021, amid the wider push to expand ethnic studies requirements in the district and across the state, she and other teachers were asked to participate in a working group to develop and vet a more standardized curriculum.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046126\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046126\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFUSD-01-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFUSD-01-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFUSD-01-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250418-SFUSD-01-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Francisco Unified School District Administrative Offices in San Francisco on April 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>They split into small cohorts focused on each of the course’s four units, swapped and refined lesson plans, and came up with a draft for each of the class’s sections throughout the summers of 2021 and 2022.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said the working group had planned to gather to assess their first drafts, give each other feedback and make further changes before delivering a final product.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But that never happened.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“After the summer of 2022, there was no more money or funding to keep doing the process of making the pilot curriculum,” she said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The work was cut short amid the return to classrooms and mass exodus of district employees after the COVID-19 pandemic and a growing budget deficit, she told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What’s available right now on the website when you look at SFUSD curriculum is a lot of our draft work,” Aguirre said. “We were in the middle of the process. Project specialists went in and kind of just made it presentable and put it out there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those drafts — in the form of Google slide presentations for each of the class’s four units — include writing prompts, in-class group projects, links to articles and external resources that align with the class’s broader focus areas. The specific materials, Aguirre said, are suggestions, not requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is no standardized curriculum for the course, nor is there one for any of the district’s history classes, Aguirre said. Instead, teachers are required to teach based on a bullet-point list of content standards handed down by the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s not a curriculum … that doesn’t exist,” she said, adding that the textbook she’s been using in her world history courses was developed 20 years ago.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Pausing the course\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Despite the pushback that’s plagued the end of the school year, the educators said they went into the summer working on updates to their lesson plans and preparing to teach ethnic studies again in the fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Then, about last week, I started hearing murmurs through the different ethnic study teachers that I was already working with over the summer that something might happen and that there was some sort of plan that things might not be the same in the fall,” said the teacher who requested anonymity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12046361\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12046361\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-06-BL_qed-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-06-BL_qed-1.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-06-BL_qed-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/06/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-06-BL_qed-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Francisco Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Maria Su speaks during a press conference at the school district offices in San Francisco on April 21, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In a statement, a district spokesperson said, “The superintendent is currently in active discussions with principals and various stakeholders regarding high school curriculum and course sequencing for social studies, including Ethnic Studies, in fall 2025.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district said there was no anticipated change to the ethnic studies graduation requirement, which is mandated by school board policy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are committed to keeping our community informed as soon as we have an official update,” the statement said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Ethnic studies teachers told KQED they’re worried that a potential pause could turn into a repeal of the class altogether.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s no more teachers on special assignment, nobody’s actually teaching ethnic studies, I’ve heard no talk of work groups, there’s no funding to get teachers together to keep on working on the curriculum … then you run into the same issue about access to resources,” Aguirre said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Alexander said that an audit of the curriculum is a good idea — especially given valid concerns about certain class materials — but he believes the class should continue in the interim.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He said that a few years ago, when a group of parents approached the district with concerns about racism in the U.S. history curriculum, prompting an audit, “we didn’t stop teaching U.S. history.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We analyzed the curriculum and looked at ways that we could improve [it] and make them anti-racist in line with our values,” Alexander told KQED. “That to me seems like the appropriate response when this kind of thing comes up. I’ve never heard of stopping a course because of curriculum concerns.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A larger movement\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The decision comes as the state also seems to be backing away from its push to broaden ethnic studies education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation in 2021 mandating a semester in the course for all public school students beginning with the class of 2030, who will enter ninth grade in the fall. The same year, the state board of education adopted a model curriculum for the course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008270\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12008270\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/10.02.2024-SB1016-03-scaled-1-e1733162494960.jpg\" alt=\"A white man wearing a suit sits at a desk in an office, writing on a piece of paper with an American flag behind him.\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1300\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Gov. Gavin Newsom on Sept. 28, 2024. \u003ccite>(Photo Courtesy of Governor of California via Flickr)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>However, California’s current 2025–26 budget plan, which needs to be adopted by the end of this month, doesn’t include funding to implement ethnic studies statewide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under the 2021 law that created the ethnic studies requirement, the state had to provide money to pay for course materials, teachers and training for the mandate to take effect.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the same time, districts around the Bay Area and the state have also been backing off plans to expand the course in the face of \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/palo-alto-ethnic-studies-19588959.php\">legal challenges\u003c/a>, many of which have stemmed from Israel’s war in Gaza and concerns over allegations of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12008739/sfusd-antisemitism-training-sparks-controversy-as-some-educators-opt-for-alternative\">antisemitism in schools\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.digitaldemocracy.org/bills/ca_202520260ab715\">bill making its way through California’s Legislature\u003c/a> that aims to strengthen protections against discrimination and antisemitism has also been criticized by some teachers and \u003ca href=\"https://ca.cair.com/action/stop-ab-715-in-the-senate-defend-our-classrooms/\">advocacy groups\u003c/a> who worry it could prohibit students from learning about Palestine and human rights more broadly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The reason why ethnic studies was created in the 1960s in San Francisco was because of the lack of education for students of color about their own identities,” Lavin said. Without ethnic studies, she asked, “Where exactly are those students supposed to get their representation?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>After months of budget wrangling, buyouts and the threat of state takeover, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-unified-school-district\">San Francisco’s school district\u003c/a> will deliver a balanced budget, according to Superintendent Maria Su.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the San Francisco Unified School District nears the end of its fiscal year, Su on Tuesday unveiled the financial plan she was \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017631/embattled-sf-school-district-offer-hundreds-buyouts-potential-layoffs\">brought into the embattled system to deliver\u003c/a> last fall. The budget eliminates a $113 million deficit, focuses more spending on school campuses, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12040756/sfusd-reverses-over-150-layoffs-but-hiring-teachers-may-still-be-an-uphill-battle\">avoids teacher layoffs\u003c/a> and cuts down nearly half of the district’s deficit spending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have made a lot of really, really tough decisions and all of those necessary cuts that need to be made to support our budget and, of course, to maintain local control,” Su told reporters last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district’s budget focus will be three-pronged, she said: improving student learning, creating strong and supported schools, and prioritizing effective governance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have worked really hard to strategically invest in what we know our students need the most,” she continued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest cuts will be in staffing. Nearly 400 positions are being eliminated across school sites and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036914/more-sfusd-layoffs-to-target-central-office-bringing-budget-gap-closer-to-zero\">the central office\u003c/a>, and 345 more positions are being vacated by retiring staffers who took a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017631/embattled-sf-school-district-offer-hundreds-buyouts-potential-layoffs\">voluntary buyout\u003c/a> earlier this year. Of those, 315 positions will be filled by mostly lower-paid — and less experienced — workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036911\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036911\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Francisco Unified School District administrative offices in San Francisco on April 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>About 180 of the eliminated positions involve employees who work on school campuses, according to district documents, though their exact roles have not been made clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Frank Lara, vice president of the SFUSD teachers union, said most were “special assignment” roles that many experienced teachers had moved into to focus on English language learning, reforms to teaching and curriculum, or reducing class sizes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district said every school site will have a principal, clerk and classroom teachers for each grade level, but those specialized staffers, along with assistant principals and higher-than-mandated numbers of paraeducators, counselors and social workers, are not guaranteed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re really facing a major disruption to how schools serve students,” without those jobs, but the effects won’t be fully known until next year, Lara said.[aside postID=news_12040756 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/05/250204-WeCantWait-04-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg']Su said last week that the district was focused on making sure schools still have access to enrichment courses in the arts and physical education, along with language immersion opportunities and improved food options — a hot topic with students, she told reporters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the central office, the gaps could be more glaring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 190 roles have been eliminated there, which will extend wait times for technology needs and force the office to prioritize certain communications and digital resources that are aligned with curriculum, according to the district. With the reductions, spending on the central office will be about 16% of the district’s total budget, down from 25% five years ago and lower than similar districts in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That shows the commitment to our students, our schools, our families, and it’s much appreciated,” said board member Matt Alexander.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Union leaders have long said the district spends too much of its resources on the administrative office staff, and they urged for cuts to be kept away from school sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lara said it was a positive step, but he added that the union is continuing to monitor if, and how, central office positions are reintroduced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the next year, Su said further reductions will be needed, especially after the district reported that it will receive about $8 million less revenue in state and attendance-related funding than it budgeted for in a fiscal update last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district is also continuing to try to curb deficit spending, which is down from more than $90 million to $47 million this year. Projections for future years show the district continuing to overspend by about the same amount, meaning it will need to take additional steps to reach longer-term stability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Su said that could mean discussing whether school closures are needed, investing in changes to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031802/san-francisco-public-schools-see-surge-applications-thanks-transitional-kindergarten-demand\">transitional kindergarten\u003c/a> and special education services, and making additional reductions in some programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A clearer picture of next year’s budget outlook will come into focus next week, when the district plans to present a fiscal stabilization plan for the 2026–2027 school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After months of budget wrangling, buyouts and the threat of state takeover, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-unified-school-district\">San Francisco’s school district\u003c/a> will deliver a balanced budget, according to Superintendent Maria Su.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As the San Francisco Unified School District nears the end of its fiscal year, Su on Tuesday unveiled the financial plan she was \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017631/embattled-sf-school-district-offer-hundreds-buyouts-potential-layoffs\">brought into the embattled system to deliver\u003c/a> last fall. The budget eliminates a $113 million deficit, focuses more spending on school campuses, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12040756/sfusd-reverses-over-150-layoffs-but-hiring-teachers-may-still-be-an-uphill-battle\">avoids teacher layoffs\u003c/a> and cuts down nearly half of the district’s deficit spending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have made a lot of really, really tough decisions and all of those necessary cuts that need to be made to support our budget and, of course, to maintain local control,” Su told reporters last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district’s budget focus will be three-pronged, she said: improving student learning, creating strong and supported schools, and prioritizing effective governance.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have worked really hard to strategically invest in what we know our students need the most,” she continued.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The biggest cuts will be in staffing. Nearly 400 positions are being eliminated across school sites and \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036914/more-sfusd-layoffs-to-target-central-office-bringing-budget-gap-closer-to-zero\">the central office\u003c/a>, and 345 more positions are being vacated by retiring staffers who took a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017631/embattled-sf-school-district-offer-hundreds-buyouts-potential-layoffs\">voluntary buyout\u003c/a> earlier this year. Of those, 315 positions will be filled by mostly lower-paid — and less experienced — workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036911\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036911\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Francisco Unified School District administrative offices in San Francisco on April 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>About 180 of the eliminated positions involve employees who work on school campuses, according to district documents, though their exact roles have not been made clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Frank Lara, vice president of the SFUSD teachers union, said most were “special assignment” roles that many experienced teachers had moved into to focus on English language learning, reforms to teaching and curriculum, or reducing class sizes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district said every school site will have a principal, clerk and classroom teachers for each grade level, but those specialized staffers, along with assistant principals and higher-than-mandated numbers of paraeducators, counselors and social workers, are not guaranteed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re really facing a major disruption to how schools serve students,” without those jobs, but the effects won’t be fully known until next year, Lara said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Su said last week that the district was focused on making sure schools still have access to enrichment courses in the arts and physical education, along with language immersion opportunities and improved food options — a hot topic with students, she told reporters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the central office, the gaps could be more glaring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 190 roles have been eliminated there, which will extend wait times for technology needs and force the office to prioritize certain communications and digital resources that are aligned with curriculum, according to the district. With the reductions, spending on the central office will be about 16% of the district’s total budget, down from 25% five years ago and lower than similar districts in the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That shows the commitment to our students, our schools, our families, and it’s much appreciated,” said board member Matt Alexander.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Union leaders have long said the district spends too much of its resources on the administrative office staff, and they urged for cuts to be kept away from school sites.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lara said it was a positive step, but he added that the union is continuing to monitor if, and how, central office positions are reintroduced.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the next year, Su said further reductions will be needed, especially after the district reported that it will receive about $8 million less revenue in state and attendance-related funding than it budgeted for in a fiscal update last month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district is also continuing to try to curb deficit spending, which is down from more than $90 million to $47 million this year. Projections for future years show the district continuing to overspend by about the same amount, meaning it will need to take additional steps to reach longer-term stability.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Su said that could mean discussing whether school closures are needed, investing in changes to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031802/san-francisco-public-schools-see-surge-applications-thanks-transitional-kindergarten-demand\">transitional kindergarten\u003c/a> and special education services, and making additional reductions in some programs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A clearer picture of next year’s budget outlook will come into focus next week, when the district plans to present a fiscal stabilization plan for the 2026–2027 school year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "sfusd-reverses-over-150-layoffs-but-hiring-teachers-may-still-be-an-uphill-battle",
"title": "SFUSD Reverses Over 150 Layoffs, But Hiring Teachers May Still Be an Uphill Battle",
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"content": "\u003cp>After months of uncertainty, San Francisco’s teachers union is celebrating a win in the district’s move to rescind nearly all of the layoff notices it had planned for school-site staffers. Now, union representatives say the district’s staffing woes have shifted to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12039904/sfusd-cuts-spending-dozens-classroom-roles-still-need-filled\">filling classrooms that will be left empty\u003c/a> by retiring and resigning teachers next month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, grim budget predictions suggested that hundreds of teachers, counselors and other San Francisco Unified School District employees \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028317/sf-schools-brace-hundreds-layoffs-including-teachers-librarians-counselors\">could be laid off\u003c/a> as part of significant cuts to patch a $114 million deficit. But on Friday afternoon, the district announced that it would pull back pink slips that had been approved for 34 school counselors and 117 paraeducators, who provide instructional support to teachers, leaving just nine remaining notices going out to school-site staffers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>District officials said they were able to cut the number down significantly through collaboration with the county and state boards of education, along with a successful early retirement buyout offer to educators. About 100 staffers in SFUSD’s administrative central office \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036914/more-sfusd-layoffs-to-target-central-office-bringing-budget-gap-closer-to-zero\">were also laid off\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Frank Lara, the vice president of SFUSD’s teachers union, called the announcement a victory and commended the district for its work to balance the budget, but he emphasized that there is still work to be done. Before children return to campuses next fall, he said, the district will have to replace classroom teachers \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031347/san-francisco-schools-may-cut-staff-face-backlash-over-new-hiring-limits\">taking the voluntary buyout\u003c/a> as well as others who could announce their resignations this summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We still have a lot of work to do to fully staff classrooms, and we very much are in collaboration with the district to get that done,” he told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12037008\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12037008\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Francisco Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Maria Su speaks during a press conference at the school district offices in San Francisco on April 21, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson for SFUSD said the exact number of classroom vacancies throughout the district’s 120 campuses fluctuates significantly, but each year, a couple of hundred teachers often leave their roles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A hiring freeze has limited the district’s ability to make staffing decisions without state approval for the last year, but according to a spokesperson, it’s been approved to hire 77 additional classroom teachers, on top of the 162 hires it was granted to fill open positions earlier this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lara said SFUSD’s hiring allowance is enough to offer every eligible temporary teacher in the district a new contract for next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Right now, principals have a list of all these individuals and principals are calling these folks to get into the classroom and offering them contracts,” Lara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s more worried that some schools will be unable to fill classroom openings, especially if the number grows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once they end the school year, [teachers] often announce in their email threads to their school community that they’re leaving, so we expect that number to increase while the pool of candidates will decrease,” Lara said. “We’re not out of the woodwork yet in terms of staffing, but at least everybody now knows what the rules are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12039904 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The volume of open positions at this point in the school year has some principals worried, according to Anna Klafter, the president of the district’s administrators union and principal at Independence High School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every school has open positions, she said, and a principal at one of the westside high schools is looking to fill about 30 open roles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“School is over in two and a half weeks,” she said, adding that principals aren’t paid to work throughout all of summer break. “Principals will be forced to work over the summer to staff their schools because the alternative is not working and not having staff in your schools, and that’s just not OK. And then we’ll be asking for money to be paid because it is a lot of work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SFUSD said it plans to first offer open roles to internal candidates who were laid off from the central office or are on temporary contracts, then open hiring to others, which could extend the hiring timeline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Klafter said her union is pushing to open hiring to all as soon as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re quite late in the hiring season to have this many open positions,” Klafter told KQED. “Other districts around us are done hiring teachers in May, and we’re just beginning our opening hiring. That makes school leaders nervous because we have to assume first, are we going to get enough candidates for these positions? And then second, are these going to be the best candidates out there?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After months of uncertainty, San Francisco’s teachers union is celebrating a win in the district’s move to rescind nearly all of the layoff notices it had planned for school-site staffers. Now, union representatives say the district’s staffing woes have shifted to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12039904/sfusd-cuts-spending-dozens-classroom-roles-still-need-filled\">filling classrooms that will be left empty\u003c/a> by retiring and resigning teachers next month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, grim budget predictions suggested that hundreds of teachers, counselors and other San Francisco Unified School District employees \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028317/sf-schools-brace-hundreds-layoffs-including-teachers-librarians-counselors\">could be laid off\u003c/a> as part of significant cuts to patch a $114 million deficit. But on Friday afternoon, the district announced that it would pull back pink slips that had been approved for 34 school counselors and 117 paraeducators, who provide instructional support to teachers, leaving just nine remaining notices going out to school-site staffers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>District officials said they were able to cut the number down significantly through collaboration with the county and state boards of education, along with a successful early retirement buyout offer to educators. About 100 staffers in SFUSD’s administrative central office \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12036914/more-sfusd-layoffs-to-target-central-office-bringing-budget-gap-closer-to-zero\">were also laid off\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Frank Lara, the vice president of SFUSD’s teachers union, called the announcement a victory and commended the district for its work to balance the budget, but he emphasized that there is still work to be done. Before children return to campuses next fall, he said, the district will have to replace classroom teachers \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031347/san-francisco-schools-may-cut-staff-face-backlash-over-new-hiring-limits\">taking the voluntary buyout\u003c/a> as well as others who could announce their resignations this summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We still have a lot of work to do to fully staff classrooms, and we very much are in collaboration with the district to get that done,” he told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12037008\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12037008\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250421-SFUSDCentralCuts-11-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">San Francisco Unified School District Superintendent Dr. Maria Su speaks during a press conference at the school district offices in San Francisco on April 21, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>A spokesperson for SFUSD said the exact number of classroom vacancies throughout the district’s 120 campuses fluctuates significantly, but each year, a couple of hundred teachers often leave their roles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A hiring freeze has limited the district’s ability to make staffing decisions without state approval for the last year, but according to a spokesperson, it’s been approved to hire 77 additional classroom teachers, on top of the 162 hires it was granted to fill open positions earlier this month.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lara said SFUSD’s hiring allowance is enough to offer every eligible temporary teacher in the district a new contract for next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Right now, principals have a list of all these individuals and principals are calling these folks to get into the classroom and offering them contracts,” Lara said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>He’s more worried that some schools will be unable to fill classroom openings, especially if the number grows.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Once they end the school year, [teachers] often announce in their email threads to their school community that they’re leaving, so we expect that number to increase while the pool of candidates will decrease,” Lara said. “We’re not out of the woodwork yet in terms of staffing, but at least everybody now knows what the rules are.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The volume of open positions at this point in the school year has some principals worried, according to Anna Klafter, the president of the district’s administrators union and principal at Independence High School.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Every school has open positions, she said, and a principal at one of the westside high schools is looking to fill about 30 open roles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“School is over in two and a half weeks,” she said, adding that principals aren’t paid to work throughout all of summer break. “Principals will be forced to work over the summer to staff their schools because the alternative is not working and not having staff in your schools, and that’s just not OK. And then we’ll be asking for money to be paid because it is a lot of work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SFUSD said it plans to first offer open roles to internal candidates who were laid off from the central office or are on temporary contracts, then open hiring to others, which could extend the hiring timeline.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Klafter said her union is pushing to open hiring to all as soon as possible.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re quite late in the hiring season to have this many open positions,” Klafter told KQED. “Other districts around us are done hiring teachers in May, and we’re just beginning our opening hiring. That makes school leaders nervous because we have to assume first, are we going to get enough candidates for these positions? And then second, are these going to be the best candidates out there?”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "More SFUSD Layoffs to Target Central Office, Bringing Budget Gap Closer to Zero",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/sfusd\">San Francisco’s schools\u003c/a> 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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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 \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031347/san-francisco-schools-may-cut-staff-face-backlash-over-new-hiring-limits\">counselor and paraeducator layoffs\u003c/a> 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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“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.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 100 staffers in the central office will be laid off, and 30 more roles will be eliminated after employees took the district’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017631/embattled-sf-school-district-offer-hundreds-buyouts-potential-layoffs\">early retirement buyout\u003c/a> 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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036911\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036911\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Francisco Unified School District Administrative Offices in San Francisco on April 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The cuts will reduce that to 16%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“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.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Frank Lara, the vice president of the union representing SFUSD teachers, told KQED that the union is optimistic about her proposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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.[aside postID=news_12031802 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241023-SFUSDSUPERINTENDENT-13-BL-KQED.jpg']“We can see that it’s actually coming out of where it should,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of those special positions will be eliminated, or at least remain vacant until the district fills 92% of its base staffing needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008939\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12008939\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241010-SFUSDClosures-11-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241010-SFUSDClosures-11-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241010-SFUSDClosures-11-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241010-SFUSDClosures-11-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241010-SFUSDClosures-11-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241010-SFUSDClosures-11-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241010-SFUSDClosures-11-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Signs cover the fence in front of Spring Valley Science Elementary School in San Francisco during a press conference on Oct. 10, 2024, to push for city intervention in SFUSD’s school closure plans. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>and technology. Human resources and early education will also lose more than a dozen roles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though not ideal, Su said it’s a necessary expense after the district \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11908196/sfusd-teachers-protest-missed-paychecks-and-payroll-glitches-at-headquarters-overnight-sfusd\">tried and failed\u003c/a> to implement a new system in 2022 and 2023, which left employees with missing or incorrect paychecks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“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.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fiasco \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sfusd-payroll-scandal-empower-teacher-pay-18698224.php\">cost the district $34 million\u003c/a> 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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“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.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“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.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "San Francisco’s schools superintendent is set to present a plan to cut 205 central office positions, including top administrative staffers, to the Board of Education on Tuesday.",
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"title": "More SFUSD Layoffs to Target Central Office, Bringing Budget Gap Closer to Zero | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/sfusd\">San Francisco’s schools\u003c/a> 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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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 \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031347/san-francisco-schools-may-cut-staff-face-backlash-over-new-hiring-limits\">counselor and paraeducator layoffs\u003c/a> 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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“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.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>About 100 staffers in the central office will be laid off, and 30 more roles will be eliminated after employees took the district’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017631/embattled-sf-school-district-offer-hundreds-buyouts-potential-layoffs\">early retirement buyout\u003c/a> 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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12036911\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12036911\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/04/250418-SFUSD-06-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The San Francisco Unified School District Administrative Offices in San Francisco on April 18, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The cuts will reduce that to 16%.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“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.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Frank Lara, the vice president of the union representing SFUSD teachers, told KQED that the union is optimistic about her proposal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>“We can see that it’s actually coming out of where it should,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Most of those special positions will be eliminated, or at least remain vacant until the district fills 92% of its base staffing needs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008939\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12008939\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241010-SFUSDClosures-11-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241010-SFUSDClosures-11-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241010-SFUSDClosures-11-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241010-SFUSDClosures-11-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241010-SFUSDClosures-11-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241010-SFUSDClosures-11-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241010-SFUSDClosures-11-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Signs cover the fence in front of Spring Valley Science Elementary School in San Francisco during a press conference on Oct. 10, 2024, to push for city intervention in SFUSD’s school closure plans. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>and technology. Human resources and early education will also lose more than a dozen roles.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Though not ideal, Su said it’s a necessary expense after the district \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11908196/sfusd-teachers-protest-missed-paychecks-and-payroll-glitches-at-headquarters-overnight-sfusd\">tried and failed\u003c/a> to implement a new system in 2022 and 2023, which left employees with missing or incorrect paychecks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“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.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fiasco \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/sfusd-payroll-scandal-empower-teacher-pay-18698224.php\">cost the district $34 million\u003c/a> 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.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“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.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>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.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“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.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"slug": "san-francisco-public-schools-see-surge-applications-thanks-transitional-kindergarten-demand",
"title": "San Francisco Public Schools See Surge of Applications, Thanks to Transitional Kindergarten Demand",
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"headTitle": "San Francisco Public Schools See Surge of Applications, Thanks to Transitional Kindergarten Demand | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>San Francisco public schools received the largest number of applications in more than a decade thanks to a statewide initiative to offer \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11989955/what-to-expect-when-enrolling-your-child-in-transitional-kindergarten\">a free year of prekindergarten to all 4-year-olds this fall\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district announced Monday first-round school assignments for the 2025–26 school year for nearly 15,500 applicants, a 10% increase in applications compared to last year, said Lauren Koehler, executive director of San Francisco Unified School District’s enrollment center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a bit of good news for a district facing \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031347/san-francisco-schools-may-cut-staff-face-backlash-over-new-hiring-limits\">a major budget shortfall\u003c/a>, partly caused by declining enrollment trends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While applications for kindergarten, 6th grade and 9th grade went up, the biggest surge in applications was for transitional kindergarten, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfusd.edu/schools/enroll/student-assignment-policy/annual-assignment-highlights#77792\">according to district data\u003c/a>. SFUSD received nearly 1,990 student applications for TK, which is 673 more than last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California started adding TK to its sprawling public school system in 2022 and has been gradually accommodating more 4-year-olds based on their birth dates. Starting this fall, all kids who turn 4 by September will be guaranteed a spot in TK. SFUSD is planning to open 18 more classrooms to meet the demand, Koehler said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>We’re all really excited about the expansion in TK because it makes [preschool] more affordable for many more families,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12030561 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/03/20250307_ALAMEDACHILDCARE_GC-2-KQED-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To encourage families to enroll in TK, the district changed its assignment policy so that students can continue into kindergarten at the same school without having to reapply. That way, parents don’t have to contend with the assignment process two years in a row, and school staff can nurture students’ social and academic growth over the course of two years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Koehler noted that 90% of TK-to-12th-grade applicants were assigned to one of their requested schools, almost 1,000 more students than last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So not only are we having more interest in our schools, we’re also able to assign more kids to schools that they prefer,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Families must accept or decline their assignments by March 27, and a new waitlist system allows them to get results without reapplying for their preferred school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though some families may decline their assignments, Koehler expects SFUSD’s overall enrollment to be slightly higher for the coming year than the current \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfusd.edu/about-sfusd/facts-about-sfusd-glance\">50,000 students\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a small bright spot for a district facing enrollment declines in the long term. The city’s public schools lost more than 4,000 students since 2012–13 and are projected to lose 4,600 more students by 2032 due to demographic trends such as declining birth rates, \u003ca href=\"https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LJBGENPuvXFmR8nuko9c1goeW1WijG_I/view\">according to \u003c/a>district forecasts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, SFUSD said it would \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031347/san-francisco-schools-may-cut-staff-face-backlash-over-new-hiring-limits\">issue about 170 \u003c/a>preliminary layoff notices to school counselors and paraeducators as it works to close a $113 million budget deficit by year’s end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "It’s a bit of good news as the San Francisco district faces a budget crisis, partly caused by declining enrollment trends. ",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>San Francisco public schools received the largest number of applications in more than a decade thanks to a statewide initiative to offer \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11989955/what-to-expect-when-enrolling-your-child-in-transitional-kindergarten\">a free year of prekindergarten to all 4-year-olds this fall\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district announced Monday first-round school assignments for the 2025–26 school year for nearly 15,500 applicants, a 10% increase in applications compared to last year, said Lauren Koehler, executive director of San Francisco Unified School District’s enrollment center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s a bit of good news for a district facing \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031347/san-francisco-schools-may-cut-staff-face-backlash-over-new-hiring-limits\">a major budget shortfall\u003c/a>, partly caused by declining enrollment trends.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While applications for kindergarten, 6th grade and 9th grade went up, the biggest surge in applications was for transitional kindergarten, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfusd.edu/schools/enroll/student-assignment-policy/annual-assignment-highlights#77792\">according to district data\u003c/a>. SFUSD received nearly 1,990 student applications for TK, which is 673 more than last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California started adding TK to its sprawling public school system in 2022 and has been gradually accommodating more 4-year-olds based on their birth dates. Starting this fall, all kids who turn 4 by September will be guaranteed a spot in TK. SFUSD is planning to open 18 more classrooms to meet the demand, Koehler said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cstrong>“\u003c/strong>We’re all really excited about the expansion in TK because it makes [preschool] more affordable for many more families,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To encourage families to enroll in TK, the district changed its assignment policy so that students can continue into kindergarten at the same school without having to reapply. That way, parents don’t have to contend with the assignment process two years in a row, and school staff can nurture students’ social and academic growth over the course of two years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Koehler noted that 90% of TK-to-12th-grade applicants were assigned to one of their requested schools, almost 1,000 more students than last year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“So not only are we having more interest in our schools, we’re also able to assign more kids to schools that they prefer,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Families must accept or decline their assignments by March 27, and a new waitlist system allows them to get results without reapplying for their preferred school.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though some families may decline their assignments, Koehler expects SFUSD’s overall enrollment to be slightly higher for the coming year than the current \u003ca href=\"https://www.sfusd.edu/about-sfusd/facts-about-sfusd-glance\">50,000 students\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s a small bright spot for a district facing enrollment declines in the long term. The city’s public schools lost more than 4,000 students since 2012–13 and are projected to lose 4,600 more students by 2032 due to demographic trends such as declining birth rates, \u003ca href=\"https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LJBGENPuvXFmR8nuko9c1goeW1WijG_I/view\">according to \u003c/a>district forecasts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last week, SFUSD said it would \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12031347/san-francisco-schools-may-cut-staff-face-backlash-over-new-hiring-limits\">issue about 170 \u003c/a>preliminary layoff notices to school counselors and paraeducators as it works to close a $113 million budget deficit by year’s end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 10:40 a.m. Friday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-unified-school-district\">San Francisco Unified School District\u003c/a> announced Thursday evening that it will issue about 170 preliminary layoff notices as it works to close a massive budget deficit by year’s end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pink slips will be sent to 34 counselors and 143 paraeducators — a sharp reduction from the hundreds of potential notices \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028317/sf-schools-brace-hundreds-layoffs-including-teachers-librarians-counselors\">the school board approved\u003c/a> in February — but the smaller list does not guarantee that staff reductions won’t be more significant next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Superintendent Maria Su has said the district spends about 80% of its $1.3 billion budget on staffing and faces about a $113 million shortfall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While it is very painful, it is very necessary for us to reduce our existing workforce in both our central office as well as throughout our schools,” she told reporters in February.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other teachers, social workers, counselors and paraeducators will leave the district through an early retirement buyout, which more than 300 agreed to in February. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Due to the overwhelming popularity of the supplemental early retirement plan, I am really grateful to say that we do not have to issue any preliminary layoff notices to our teachers across the district,” Su said at a budget town hall Thursday night. “This is really great news for us because we were hoping and trying to find a way to preserve consistency of our [classroom] teaching staff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>United Educators of San Francisco Vice President Frank Lara said the district is also cross-referencing about 280 sunsetting temporary contracts and could opt not to replace some educators who leave the district voluntarily in the spring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district has already sent 57 assistant principals preliminary letters of release or reassignment, some of whom could be moved into classroom positions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SFUSD shared a baseline staffing formula last month stating that classroom teachers, principals, clerks and janitors will be funded at its schools. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the district’s \u003ca href=\"https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Go6kR6mU85O8bcHVZlBHntXBYvuZo-qQ/view\">new supplementary staffing guide\u003c/a>, schools will only be able to hire new social workers, nurses, librarians and counselors after those roles are covered at their campus. Schools with supplemental funding can also hire assistant principals. Hiring for some additional roles, such as English language and intervention specialists, will be on hold until 92% of classroom teaching positions across the district are filled.[aside postID=news_12028317 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241009-SFUSDCLOSURESMARCH-29-BL-KQED.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new guide also disallows hiring class size reduction teachers, angering some parent-teacher associations, which have traditionally funded these roles — such as two positions at Chinese Immersion School at DeAvila — at their children’s schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For many years in San Francisco, PTAs have stepped up to fill budget gaps for a variety of operating costs,” reads \u003ca href=\"https://www.change.org/p/let-parents-help-fund-sfusd-teachers\">a petition signed by more than 500 parents\u003c/a> opposing the new policy. “These PTA-funded resources have allowed schools to continue performing well academically despite inadequate funding and continued uncertainty.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district said the notices being sent are preliminary and that it is “hopeful” final notices won’t be necessary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As site budgets are finalized, we will gain a clearer understanding of which positions schools will choose to fund,” an SFUSD spokesperson said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 10:40 a.m. Friday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-unified-school-district\">San Francisco Unified School District\u003c/a> announced Thursday evening that it will issue about 170 preliminary layoff notices as it works to close a massive budget deficit by year’s end.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pink slips will be sent to 34 counselors and 143 paraeducators — a sharp reduction from the hundreds of potential notices \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028317/sf-schools-brace-hundreds-layoffs-including-teachers-librarians-counselors\">the school board approved\u003c/a> in February — but the smaller list does not guarantee that staff reductions won’t be more significant next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Superintendent Maria Su has said the district spends about 80% of its $1.3 billion budget on staffing and faces about a $113 million shortfall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While it is very painful, it is very necessary for us to reduce our existing workforce in both our central office as well as throughout our schools,” she told reporters in February.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Other teachers, social workers, counselors and paraeducators will leave the district through an early retirement buyout, which more than 300 agreed to in February. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Due to the overwhelming popularity of the supplemental early retirement plan, I am really grateful to say that we do not have to issue any preliminary layoff notices to our teachers across the district,” Su said at a budget town hall Thursday night. “This is really great news for us because we were hoping and trying to find a way to preserve consistency of our [classroom] teaching staff.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>United Educators of San Francisco Vice President Frank Lara said the district is also cross-referencing about 280 sunsetting temporary contracts and could opt not to replace some educators who leave the district voluntarily in the spring.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district has already sent 57 assistant principals preliminary letters of release or reassignment, some of whom could be moved into classroom positions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SFUSD shared a baseline staffing formula last month stating that classroom teachers, principals, clerks and janitors will be funded at its schools. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>According to the district’s \u003ca href=\"https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Go6kR6mU85O8bcHVZlBHntXBYvuZo-qQ/view\">new supplementary staffing guide\u003c/a>, schools will only be able to hire new social workers, nurses, librarians and counselors after those roles are covered at their campus. Schools with supplemental funding can also hire assistant principals. Hiring for some additional roles, such as English language and intervention specialists, will be on hold until 92% of classroom teaching positions across the district are filled.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The new guide also disallows hiring class size reduction teachers, angering some parent-teacher associations, which have traditionally funded these roles — such as two positions at Chinese Immersion School at DeAvila — at their children’s schools.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For many years in San Francisco, PTAs have stepped up to fill budget gaps for a variety of operating costs,” reads \u003ca href=\"https://www.change.org/p/let-parents-help-fund-sfusd-teachers\">a petition signed by more than 500 parents\u003c/a> opposing the new policy. “These PTA-funded resources have allowed schools to continue performing well academically despite inadequate funding and continued uncertainty.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district said the notices being sent are preliminary and that it is “hopeful” final notices won’t be necessary.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“As site budgets are finalized, we will gain a clearer understanding of which positions schools will choose to fund,” an SFUSD spokesperson said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 12:30 p.m. Thursday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco’s school board on Tuesday night \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028309/sf-school-board-must-consider-worst-case-scenario-over-800-layoffs\">approved a plan to send layoff notices\u003c/a> to hundreds of educators and other employees amid a major budget shortfall, raising concerns from school workers and families about diminishing student services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The final number of layoffs at the end of the year will almost certainly be lower, the district said, but its workforce is still going to shrink. Tuesday’s unanimous vote allows the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/sfusd\">San Francisco Unified School District\u003c/a> to issue preliminary notices to 559 employees, but it hopes to find not-yet-guaranteed restricted funding to rescind notices for some of the 280 included support staff. Classroom educators are also included, with 115 credentialed teaching positions that won’t be budgeted for next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The layoffs are the board’s first major budget decision of the year as SFUSD rushes to patch a $113 million deficit and regain local control over its spending. Without major changes, the district has reported, it could run out of cash by the middle of next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The district has experienced a significant decline in overall enrollment consistent with statewide trends, and yet we’ve kept staffing levels largely the same,” said Board President Phil Kim. “It simply is not sustainable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While it’s unclear whether the cuts will come mostly from pink slips, voluntary departures or SFUSD’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017631/embattled-sf-school-district-offer-hundreds-buyouts-potential-layoffs\">early retirement buyout\u003c/a> plan — which Superintendent Maria Su confirmed Tuesday received more than the minimum 314 applications to go forward — there will be fewer staff positions in the district next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12010494\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12010494\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-04-KQED-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-04-KQED-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-04-KQED-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-04-KQED-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-04-KQED-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-04-KQED-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-04-KQED-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maria Su speaks at a press event in front of the SFUSD offices in San Francisco on Oct. 21, 2024. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This could force schools to have more combined-grade classes or fewer full-time support staff, such as English language arts specialists and social workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Art teacher Laura Simon said Visitacion Valley Middle School is at risk of losing a full-time counselor and nurse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My school nurse helped me get vaccinated so that I could come to school, she helped my family find a clinic so that we could go see a doctor — so many of our newcomer students wrote that same thing,” Simon said during the board meeting, reading notes from students. “‘The nurse is always there for me; she talked to me about substance abuse and my feelings; she makes my school feel safe.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tara Ramos, who has been the librarian at Sanchez Middle School for a decade, said the most notable effect on students would be a lack of enrichment opportunities. Librarian roles, which weren’t included in the preliminary layoff notices approved Tuesday, could be redistributed based on the district’s new staffing model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My only role would probably end up being to just release teachers,” Ramos told KQED. Four days a week, she hosts a whole grade level in the library for almost two hours while their teachers have a planning meeting. But she said this isn’t the part of her job that inspires her — or the students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wouldn’t be able to do any book clubs, I wouldn’t be able to do any special projects. I’ll have no opportunities for collaboration with teachers, to make connections between what I’m doing in library class and what the kids are doing in classrooms,” she continued. “It’s just going to be very basic, and it kind of feels like I’m more of like a substitute than a librarian.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12028309 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-12-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the school budgets sent to schools last week, Sanchez is budgeted to have a librarian three days a week, according to Ramos. If she takes that role, she would work at another school the other two days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under that schedule, Ramos said she probably wouldn’t work with the second and third-grade classes like she has this year — taking them on curriculum-relevant field trips like Mondays to the African American Art and Culture Complex in the Fillmore during second grade’s history of San Francisco unit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also wouldn’t host book clubs, which have helped coax some of her more hesitant readers into becoming bookworms but require individualized attention as she gets to know what excites students about reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008731\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12008731\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsFamiliesGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsFamiliesGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsFamiliesGetty-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsFamiliesGetty-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsFamiliesGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsFamiliesGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsFamiliesGetty-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students and parents protest San Francisco Unified School District for closures in San Francisco on Sept. 24, 2024. Educators claim that the California Department of Education is blocking SFUSD from hiring critical staff such as counselors, nurses, social workers and psychologists. \u003ccite>(Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Assistant principals, who focus on issues like chronic absenteeism and managing individualized education programs for students with disabilities, are also not included in the district’s preliminary staffing model. Earlier this month, the school board approved 149 administrator layoffs — all positions considered supplemental by the state and that SFUSD can’t afford to pay for with general funds under its bare-bones staffing plan, according to Su.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That fund — which comes from local property taxes and the state — would guarantee the staffing of classroom teachers, a principal, a clerk and janitorial staff at each school site, which are the requirements for “keeping the lights on.”[aside postID=news_12027158 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241010-SFUSDClosures-11-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg']Other roles would be filled only if the district can find restricted money to allocate to them. Ramos’ position will likely be covered by the Public Education Enrichment Fund, which comes from the city and a portion of which must be used for sports, libraries, arts and music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents, teachers and board members have repeatedly implored district staff to cut contracts and positions in the central office first so that SFUSD doesn’t have to issue and later rescind as many layoff notices — which hurts morale and is likely to lead educators to look for jobs elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Receiving a pink slip — and not knowing whether it will be rescinded — “often causes a lot of anxiety and, of course, a real reaction of folks to seek employment elsewhere,” said teachers union president Cassondra Curiel before the vote. “For these layoffs to be coming in at almost 400 when we know that annually in a regular school year, 400 of our educators churn out of education in San Francisco Unified … we really find this to be an unnecessarily high number.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Su said her team would turn to reductions in the central office next but had to look at teacher staffing first because the state requires districts to send out preliminary notices for those positions by March 15.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The total number of educators that will be cut — and how many will be through layoffs — won’t be clear until May, when Gov. Gavin Newsom releases his state budget revision and the district has a better understanding of its attrition and retirement rates. A final vote on layoff notices has to happen before May 15.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to see the central office reductions. We need to see the contract reductions,” board member Matt Alexander told Su and the budget team, adding that he felt uncomfortable supporting the layoffs while these cuts remained up in the air. “If we get to May 15, I’m not going to vote for this same number of layoffs unless the data shows that that’s what needs to happen — but there needs to be a lot more evidence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Feb. 27: This story was updated to clarify that school librarian cuts were not included in the layoff notices approved Tuesday night. Instead, campuses could have reduced and redistributed librarian roles under the district’s overall staffing model for next year.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "San Francisco’s school board approved a plan to send preliminary layoff notices to 559 employees, although the final number is likely to be lower.",
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"title": "SF Schools Brace for Hundreds of Layoffs, Including Teachers and Counselors | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 12:30 p.m. Thursday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco’s school board on Tuesday night \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12028309/sf-school-board-must-consider-worst-case-scenario-over-800-layoffs\">approved a plan to send layoff notices\u003c/a> to hundreds of educators and other employees amid a major budget shortfall, raising concerns from school workers and families about diminishing student services.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The final number of layoffs at the end of the year will almost certainly be lower, the district said, but its workforce is still going to shrink. Tuesday’s unanimous vote allows the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/sfusd\">San Francisco Unified School District\u003c/a> to issue preliminary notices to 559 employees, but it hopes to find not-yet-guaranteed restricted funding to rescind notices for some of the 280 included support staff. Classroom educators are also included, with 115 credentialed teaching positions that won’t be budgeted for next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The layoffs are the board’s first major budget decision of the year as SFUSD rushes to patch a $113 million deficit and regain local control over its spending. Without major changes, the district has reported, it could run out of cash by the middle of next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The district has experienced a significant decline in overall enrollment consistent with statewide trends, and yet we’ve kept staffing levels largely the same,” said Board President Phil Kim. “It simply is not sustainable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While it’s unclear whether the cuts will come mostly from pink slips, voluntary departures or SFUSD’s \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017631/embattled-sf-school-district-offer-hundreds-buyouts-potential-layoffs\">early retirement buyout\u003c/a> plan — which Superintendent Maria Su confirmed Tuesday received more than the minimum 314 applications to go forward — there will be fewer staff positions in the district next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12010494\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12010494\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-04-KQED-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-04-KQED-1.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-04-KQED-1-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-04-KQED-1-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-04-KQED-1-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-04-KQED-1-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-04-KQED-1-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maria Su speaks at a press event in front of the SFUSD offices in San Francisco on Oct. 21, 2024. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>This could force schools to have more combined-grade classes or fewer full-time support staff, such as English language arts specialists and social workers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Art teacher Laura Simon said Visitacion Valley Middle School is at risk of losing a full-time counselor and nurse.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My school nurse helped me get vaccinated so that I could come to school, she helped my family find a clinic so that we could go see a doctor — so many of our newcomer students wrote that same thing,” Simon said during the board meeting, reading notes from students. “‘The nurse is always there for me; she talked to me about substance abuse and my feelings; she makes my school feel safe.’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tara Ramos, who has been the librarian at Sanchez Middle School for a decade, said the most notable effect on students would be a lack of enrichment opportunities. Librarian roles, which weren’t included in the preliminary layoff notices approved Tuesday, could be redistributed based on the district’s new staffing model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“My only role would probably end up being to just release teachers,” Ramos told KQED. Four days a week, she hosts a whole grade level in the library for almost two hours while their teachers have a planning meeting. But she said this isn’t the part of her job that inspires her — or the students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I wouldn’t be able to do any book clubs, I wouldn’t be able to do any special projects. I’ll have no opportunities for collaboration with teachers, to make connections between what I’m doing in library class and what the kids are doing in classrooms,” she continued. “It’s just going to be very basic, and it kind of feels like I’m more of like a substitute than a librarian.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the school budgets sent to schools last week, Sanchez is budgeted to have a librarian three days a week, according to Ramos. If she takes that role, she would work at another school the other two days.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Under that schedule, Ramos said she probably wouldn’t work with the second and third-grade classes like she has this year — taking them on curriculum-relevant field trips like Mondays to the African American Art and Culture Complex in the Fillmore during second grade’s history of San Francisco unit.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She also wouldn’t host book clubs, which have helped coax some of her more hesitant readers into becoming bookworms but require individualized attention as she gets to know what excites students about reading.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008731\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12008731\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsFamiliesGetty.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsFamiliesGetty.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsFamiliesGetty-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsFamiliesGetty-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsFamiliesGetty-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsFamiliesGetty-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsFamiliesGetty-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Students and parents protest San Francisco Unified School District for closures in San Francisco on Sept. 24, 2024. Educators claim that the California Department of Education is blocking SFUSD from hiring critical staff such as counselors, nurses, social workers and psychologists. \u003ccite>(Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Assistant principals, who focus on issues like chronic absenteeism and managing individualized education programs for students with disabilities, are also not included in the district’s preliminary staffing model. Earlier this month, the school board approved 149 administrator layoffs — all positions considered supplemental by the state and that SFUSD can’t afford to pay for with general funds under its bare-bones staffing plan, according to Su.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That fund — which comes from local property taxes and the state — would guarantee the staffing of classroom teachers, a principal, a clerk and janitorial staff at each school site, which are the requirements for “keeping the lights on.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Other roles would be filled only if the district can find restricted money to allocate to them. Ramos’ position will likely be covered by the Public Education Enrichment Fund, which comes from the city and a portion of which must be used for sports, libraries, arts and music.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents, teachers and board members have repeatedly implored district staff to cut contracts and positions in the central office first so that SFUSD doesn’t have to issue and later rescind as many layoff notices — which hurts morale and is likely to lead educators to look for jobs elsewhere.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Receiving a pink slip — and not knowing whether it will be rescinded — “often causes a lot of anxiety and, of course, a real reaction of folks to seek employment elsewhere,” said teachers union president Cassondra Curiel before the vote. “For these layoffs to be coming in at almost 400 when we know that annually in a regular school year, 400 of our educators churn out of education in San Francisco Unified … we really find this to be an unnecessarily high number.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Su said her team would turn to reductions in the central office next but had to look at teacher staffing first because the state requires districts to send out preliminary notices for those positions by March 15.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The total number of educators that will be cut — and how many will be through layoffs — won’t be clear until May, when Gov. Gavin Newsom releases his state budget revision and the district has a better understanding of its attrition and retirement rates. A final vote on layoff notices has to happen before May 15.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to see the central office reductions. We need to see the contract reductions,” board member Matt Alexander told Su and the budget team, adding that he felt uncomfortable supporting the layoffs while these cuts remained up in the air. “If we get to May 15, I’m not going to vote for this same number of layoffs unless the data shows that that’s what needs to happen — but there needs to be a lot more evidence.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Feb. 27: This story was updated to clarify that school librarian cuts were not included in the layoff notices approved Tuesday night. Instead, campuses could have reduced and redistributed librarian roles under the district’s overall staffing model for next year.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "sf-school-board-must-consider-worst-case-scenario-over-800-layoffs",
"title": "SF School Board Must Consider a Worst-Case Scenario of Over 800 Layoffs",
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"headTitle": "SF School Board Must Consider a Worst-Case Scenario of Over 800 Layoffs | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>San Francisco’s school board will make its first major budget decision of the year on Tuesday night when it votes on a proposal to potentially lay off hundreds of educators and administrators — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12026596/sf-school-staffing-cuts-leave-counselors-social-workers-on-the-chopping-block\">“painful” cuts\u003c/a> that parents and teachers say will unfairly harm students’ education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-unified-school-district\">San Francisco Unified School District\u003c/a>, which is already under state oversight after certifying two negative budget reports in a row, has to cut $113 million — 10% of its total spending — next year. In an announcement on Friday, SFUSD said that about 80% of its budget goes toward staffing, so cuts across school sites and the district’s central office will be necessary to close its funding gap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district has been warning of the budget crisis’ effects on school staffing since it launched its \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12010008/sf-schools-crisis-is-spiraling-with-top-official-to-resign-heres-all-thats-happened\">now-shelved school closure plan\u003c/a> last March. Still, for many, Tuesday’s decision will be a reality check of what campuses could look like next fall when the district starts operating on a staffing plan focused on “keeping the lights on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I hear that it is a really tough place to be in right now where we have to make these tough decisions, and these tough decisions are going to, as I shared in our last meeting, impact people that we know and impact our students and impact our schools,” Superintendent Maria Su said at a board meeting earlier this month. “However, we are, at this moment in time, facing a very large deficit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tuesday’s proposal is part of a worst-case scenario that would see the district issue as many as 837 preliminary layoff notices. If approved, it would give the district permission to send pink slips to 559 student-facing employees such as teachers, counselors and teachers aides. Earlier this month, the board approved a plan to send notices to 149 administrators and release temporary staffers. In the coming months, it also expects to request approval to pink slip 129 central office employees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12028401\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12028401\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-05-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-05-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-05-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-05-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-05-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-05-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-05-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su speaks during a press conference at Yick Wo Alternative Elementary School in San Francisco on Oct. 23, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The district said these high numbers were chosen out of an “abundance of caution” and added that the final number of employees left without a job next year will likely be lower. But because it is required by state law to issue preliminary pink slips by March 15 — before it has a complete picture of its budget for the next fiscal year based on resignations, an early retirement buyout plan, and final state and federal funding allocations — it wants to ensure “flexibility” to lay off the necessary number of employees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We really find this to be an unnecessarily high number, even if they were in good faith doing due diligence in order to make sure their budget matches their staffing,” said Cassondra Curiel, the president of San Francisco’s teachers union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have so many families and students without a [permanent] educator in their classroom right now, so the concept of a layoff yet again of educators that are already employed seems counterproductive to ensuring that every student has a qualified credentialed educator in their classroom for next year,” she told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12027158 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241010-SFUSDClosures-11-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last fall, students in dozens of classrooms \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12002125/as-san-francisco-school-closures-loom-frustrated-teachers-say-hiring-has-hit-a-wall\">didn’t have a permanent teacher\u003c/a>. There’s also been an uptick in the number of combination classes that schools have to teach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next year, some schools, like Sheridan Elementary School, might have to introduce a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12025440/schools-face-cuts-california-teachers-unions-band-together-demands\">kindergarten-first grade combined class\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not one person who I know has a child in this district sends their child to school to be the teacher. They send their child to school to learn from teachers and educators,” Curiel said. “The district’s cuts [are] ultimately harming what students have to look forward to for the next year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents are also worried that important school-site positions like assistant principal roles won’t be funded. Some campuses are already without a \u003ca href=\"https://careers.sfusd.edu/job/San-Francisco-Assistant-Principal-2024-2025-School-Year-CA-94102/1111756000/#:~:text=Job%20Description&text=You%20will%20report%20to%20the,the%20achievement%20of%20all%20students.\">second-in-command\u003c/a> who helps supervise and train staff and work on “closing the opportunity gap” in schools — including managing individualized education programs and efforts to help chronically absent students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve got over 100 IEPs in the school, which is about 25%–30% of the student population, all of which not only requires the extra staffing to put those supports in place but also an administrative overhead to make sure they’re being met, that the reporting is happening, all of that kind of stuff,” said Daniel Hobe, whose third-grader attends Rosa Parks Elementary in the Western Addition. “That’s really where our assistant principal was carrying a lot of the water.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12028404\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12028404\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-52-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-52-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-52-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-52-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-52-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-52-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-52-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Backpacks hang in the hallway at Yick Wo Alternative Elementary School in San Francisco on Oct. 23, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Su’s staffing plan presented earlier this month does not include guaranteed funding for assistant principals at any schools. The baseline model, which district staff said includes the positions required to keep schools functional, is trim — it includes classroom teachers, a principal, a clerk, janitorial staff and a few other roles. It doesn’t cover wages for many of the social workers or counselors the district employs, though Su said that doesn’t mean they will all be laid off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Half of our SFUSD students live in poverty, we have other kids with disabilities. This is just a real kick in the stomach,” parent Brandee Marckmann said of cuts to student support positions. “It’s not fair to basically balance the budget on the backs of our kids when it’s the SFUSD management that has made so many mistakes.”[aside postID=news_12026600 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250214-Dream-Keeper-Returns-01-KQED-1020x680.jpg']The board’s decision on Tuesday night won’t include a list of specific employees who’ll get pink slips next month, — only the numbers that will go out. If the plan is approved, the district said it will review employee resignations, retirements and leaves and then use a seniority list to determine which staffers will receive preliminary notices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some staff who have worked in the district for a long time might be bumped from a specialized role, like a language arts specialist, back to the classroom. That means that in some cases, two notices are issued while only one employee would be without a job, Curiel previously told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district is also reviewing interest in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017631/embattled-sf-school-district-offer-hundreds-buyouts-potential-layoffs\">buyout it offered more senior staff\u003c/a> last December, which had a deadline last week. If at least 314 agree to early retirement at the end of the year, they’ll get a one-time payment equal to 60% of their salary and keep their retirement benefits. The district said that could help offset the final number of layoffs, but if there is too little interest, the deal will be fully revoked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Su has said that the process of stabilizing the district’s finances will be “awful” over the next few months, she has maintained that it is necessary to keep the district from further state intervention — especially with uncertainty at the federal level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We will be in a much better place in two years’ time where this district will be fully solvent, meaning we control our budget, we control how we allocate our dollars, we control what types of programs and initiatives we want to fund,” she told the school board at its last meeting. “More importantly, we will have and be able to give our teachers and educators and staff a level of stability and predictability that they need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Tuesday’s decision could give the San Francisco school district permission to lay off hundreds of educators and administrators as it tries to cut $113 million from its budget.",
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"title": "SF School Board Must Consider a Worst-Case Scenario of Over 800 Layoffs | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>San Francisco’s school board will make its first major budget decision of the year on Tuesday night when it votes on a proposal to potentially lay off hundreds of educators and administrators — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12026596/sf-school-staffing-cuts-leave-counselors-social-workers-on-the-chopping-block\">“painful” cuts\u003c/a> that parents and teachers say will unfairly harm students’ education.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-unified-school-district\">San Francisco Unified School District\u003c/a>, which is already under state oversight after certifying two negative budget reports in a row, has to cut $113 million — 10% of its total spending — next year. In an announcement on Friday, SFUSD said that about 80% of its budget goes toward staffing, so cuts across school sites and the district’s central office will be necessary to close its funding gap.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district has been warning of the budget crisis’ effects on school staffing since it launched its \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12010008/sf-schools-crisis-is-spiraling-with-top-official-to-resign-heres-all-thats-happened\">now-shelved school closure plan\u003c/a> last March. Still, for many, Tuesday’s decision will be a reality check of what campuses could look like next fall when the district starts operating on a staffing plan focused on “keeping the lights on.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I hear that it is a really tough place to be in right now where we have to make these tough decisions, and these tough decisions are going to, as I shared in our last meeting, impact people that we know and impact our students and impact our schools,” Superintendent Maria Su said at a board meeting earlier this month. “However, we are, at this moment in time, facing a very large deficit.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Tuesday’s proposal is part of a worst-case scenario that would see the district issue as many as 837 preliminary layoff notices. If approved, it would give the district permission to send pink slips to 559 student-facing employees such as teachers, counselors and teachers aides. Earlier this month, the board approved a plan to send notices to 149 administrators and release temporary staffers. In the coming months, it also expects to request approval to pink slip 129 central office employees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12028401\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12028401\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-05-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-05-BL_qed.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-05-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-05-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-05-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-05-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-05-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su speaks during a press conference at Yick Wo Alternative Elementary School in San Francisco on Oct. 23, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The district said these high numbers were chosen out of an “abundance of caution” and added that the final number of employees left without a job next year will likely be lower. But because it is required by state law to issue preliminary pink slips by March 15 — before it has a complete picture of its budget for the next fiscal year based on resignations, an early retirement buyout plan, and final state and federal funding allocations — it wants to ensure “flexibility” to lay off the necessary number of employees.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We really find this to be an unnecessarily high number, even if they were in good faith doing due diligence in order to make sure their budget matches their staffing,” said Cassondra Curiel, the president of San Francisco’s teachers union.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have so many families and students without a [permanent] educator in their classroom right now, so the concept of a layoff yet again of educators that are already employed seems counterproductive to ensuring that every student has a qualified credentialed educator in their classroom for next year,” she told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last fall, students in dozens of classrooms \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12002125/as-san-francisco-school-closures-loom-frustrated-teachers-say-hiring-has-hit-a-wall\">didn’t have a permanent teacher\u003c/a>. There’s also been an uptick in the number of combination classes that schools have to teach.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Next year, some schools, like Sheridan Elementary School, might have to introduce a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12025440/schools-face-cuts-california-teachers-unions-band-together-demands\">kindergarten-first grade combined class\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Not one person who I know has a child in this district sends their child to school to be the teacher. They send their child to school to learn from teachers and educators,” Curiel said. “The district’s cuts [are] ultimately harming what students have to look forward to for the next year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents are also worried that important school-site positions like assistant principal roles won’t be funded. Some campuses are already without a \u003ca href=\"https://careers.sfusd.edu/job/San-Francisco-Assistant-Principal-2024-2025-School-Year-CA-94102/1111756000/#:~:text=Job%20Description&text=You%20will%20report%20to%20the,the%20achievement%20of%20all%20students.\">second-in-command\u003c/a> who helps supervise and train staff and work on “closing the opportunity gap” in schools — including managing individualized education programs and efforts to help chronically absent students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ve got over 100 IEPs in the school, which is about 25%–30% of the student population, all of which not only requires the extra staffing to put those supports in place but also an administrative overhead to make sure they’re being met, that the reporting is happening, all of that kind of stuff,” said Daniel Hobe, whose third-grader attends Rosa Parks Elementary in the Western Addition. “That’s really where our assistant principal was carrying a lot of the water.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12028404\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1999px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12028404\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-52-BL_qed.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1999\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-52-BL_qed.jpg 1999w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-52-BL_qed-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-52-BL_qed-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-52-BL_qed-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-52-BL_qed-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/241023-SFUSDSuperintendent-52-BL_qed-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1999px) 100vw, 1999px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Backpacks hang in the hallway at Yick Wo Alternative Elementary School in San Francisco on Oct. 23, 2024. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Su’s staffing plan presented earlier this month does not include guaranteed funding for assistant principals at any schools. The baseline model, which district staff said includes the positions required to keep schools functional, is trim — it includes classroom teachers, a principal, a clerk, janitorial staff and a few other roles. It doesn’t cover wages for many of the social workers or counselors the district employs, though Su said that doesn’t mean they will all be laid off.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Half of our SFUSD students live in poverty, we have other kids with disabilities. This is just a real kick in the stomach,” parent Brandee Marckmann said of cuts to student support positions. “It’s not fair to basically balance the budget on the backs of our kids when it’s the SFUSD management that has made so many mistakes.”\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The board’s decision on Tuesday night won’t include a list of specific employees who’ll get pink slips next month, — only the numbers that will go out. If the plan is approved, the district said it will review employee resignations, retirements and leaves and then use a seniority list to determine which staffers will receive preliminary notices.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some staff who have worked in the district for a long time might be bumped from a specialized role, like a language arts specialist, back to the classroom. That means that in some cases, two notices are issued while only one employee would be without a job, Curiel previously told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district is also reviewing interest in a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017631/embattled-sf-school-district-offer-hundreds-buyouts-potential-layoffs\">buyout it offered more senior staff\u003c/a> last December, which had a deadline last week. If at least 314 agree to early retirement at the end of the year, they’ll get a one-time payment equal to 60% of their salary and keep their retirement benefits. The district said that could help offset the final number of layoffs, but if there is too little interest, the deal will be fully revoked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Su has said that the process of stabilizing the district’s finances will be “awful” over the next few months, she has maintained that it is necessary to keep the district from further state intervention — especially with uncertainty at the federal level.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We will be in a much better place in two years’ time where this district will be fully solvent, meaning we control our budget, we control how we allocate our dollars, we control what types of programs and initiatives we want to fund,” she told the school board at its last meeting. “More importantly, we will have and be able to give our teachers and educators and staff a level of stability and predictability that they need.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"slug": "how-oakland-and-sf-ended-up-among-7-ca-school-districts-who-cant-pay-their-bills",
"title": "How Oakland and SF Ended Up Among 7 CA School Districts Who Can’t Pay Their Bills",
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"headTitle": "How Oakland and SF Ended Up Among 7 CA School Districts Who Can’t Pay Their Bills | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 9 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 18\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/oakland-unified-school-district\">Oakland public school\u003c/a> parents, teachers and students packed La Escuelita Elementary School’s gym in December, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017719/oaklands-school-merger-plan-stalled-districts-huge-deficit-remains\">ready for a fight\u003c/a>. The district’s board was set to vote on a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12013739/oakland-school-board-spurns-campus-closures-plans-merge-some-schools-instead\">plan to merge 10 schools\u003c/a> — a modest proposal compared to the number recommended by an efficiency study to align Oakland’s campuses with enrollment but a nonstarter for school communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After about 30 minutes of pleas from a long line of emotional students who shuffled to the podium, former board President Sam Davis paused the public comment period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was like, ‘Do we still want to hear public comment given that the guy whose idea this was isn’t even here?’” Davis recalled referring to board Vice President Mike Hutchinson, who had left his seat at the dais during the comment period after no motion was made. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Davis and Hutchinson sparred all fall about how to address the district’s massive — and growing — budget crisis. Davis believed the district needed to close schools while Hutchinson, who originally supported voting on the merger plan, pushed back against more drastic consolidations, saying there hadn’t been sufficient community engagement to do so. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re sitting in the meeting, and I’m like, ‘OK, is there a motion for this plan? And nobody makes a motion,” Davis said. “It’s not my place. I’m not going to make the motion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We basically didn’t vote.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017852\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-033.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017852\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-033.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1332\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-033.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-033-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-033-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-033-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-033-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-033-1920x1279.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Oakland Unified School District Board listens to public comment during a meeting at La Escuelita Elementary School in Oakland, California, on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. Students, families, educators, and community members raised their concerns about a proposed merger of their schools. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The anticlimactic finale of the school closure proposal is nothing new. Oakland’s school board has \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11905982/how-dare-you-oakland-school-closure-decision-inspires-new-opposition-efforts\">repeatedly floated, then backed off\u003c/a>, plans to close schools and impose other “draconian” cuts in the name of budget balancing. Lisa Grant-Dawson, the district’s chief budget officer, described it as a pattern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“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 with some commitment that ‘We’ll do something in the future,’” she told KQED. “That doesn’t happen, and we just reach the place where we’ve run out of space for us to be able to make amends as we have historically.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oakland — under state receivership since 2003 but now less than two years from regaining control — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023461/ousd-on-track-run-out-of-cash-after-avoiding-hard-decisions-scathing-letter-says\">certified a negative interim budget\u003c/a> in December. That designation puts it among just seven of nearly 1,000 California school districts that see no clear path to meeting their financial obligations over the next three years. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-unified-school-district\">San Francisco’s school district\u003c/a> is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017631/embattled-sf-school-district-offer-hundreds-buyouts-potential-layoffs\">also on the list\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12017631 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsFamiliesGetty.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two urban, considerably well-resourced districts are outliers among California’s districts with severe financial struggles. Their budgets are hundreds of millions larger. Mike Fine, the executive director of FCMAT, the financial company tasked with assisting California districts with financial management, said the reason they find themselves at the bottom is because of this skittish pattern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Districts all over the state are dealing with many of the same issues,” he said. “What distinguishes the districts on the negative list from others is the districts on the negative list aren’t really dealing with their problem in a timely way. Oakland, San Francisco have [spent] lots of years of ignoring, of not dealing with the problem at hand. Of having the same conversation year over year over year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A series of rolled-back plans\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Last fall, rumors and fears about \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12002125/as-san-francisco-school-closures-loom-frustrated-teachers-say-hiring-has-hit-a-wall\">looming school closures\u003c/a> and budget cuts swirled through Oakland and San Francisco’s schoolyards and board meetings. Like many districts across the state, both have experienced \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12014795/fewer-kids-are-going-to-california-public-schools-is-there-a-right-way-to-close-campuses\">declining enrollment\u003c/a>, shrinking the per-pupil funding they receive. COVID-19 relief money, which buoyed districts throughout the pandemic, is drying up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In October, SFUSD released a plan to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12008405/these-san-francisco-schools-could-close-list-isnt-final\">close three schools and merge another eight\u003c/a>. After massive blowback, it was shelved, and the superintendent who proposed it \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12010008/sf-schools-crisis-is-spiraling-with-top-official-to-resign-heres-all-thats-happened\">was ousted\u003c/a>. Weeks later, Oakland \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12013739/oakland-school-board-spurns-campus-closures-plans-merge-some-schools-instead\">announced its more modest merger plan\u003c/a> — combining 10 schools that already share five campuses. Davis said this replaced a proposition to close a larger number of campuses that didn’t curry enough board support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both districts have skirted around unpopular school closures for years. In 2006, SFUSD drastically scaled back a plan to close schools and abandoned another push for consolidations just before the pandemic. After opening more than 40 small schools in the early 2000s amid declining enrollment, Oakland \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11937906/oakland-school-board-halts-controversial-closure-plan-sparing-5-elementary-schools\">approved five closures\u003c/a> in 2022. The board reversed them before they took effect in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We should have emerged from [state] receivership at some point recently, and the fact that we’re still kind of eking along in receivership, why? Why haven’t we made the progress to get out of it?” Davis said. “It’s because we’ll be like, ‘OK, we’re going to close schools. No, we’re not going to close schools. OK, we’re going to make a plan. And then, what’s the plan?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008830\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241009-SFUSDCLOSURESMARCH-07-BL-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12008830\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241009-SFUSDCLOSURESMARCH-07-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241009-SFUSDCLOSURESMARCH-07-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241009-SFUSDCLOSURESMARCH-07-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241009-SFUSDCLOSURESMARCH-07-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241009-SFUSDCLOSURESMARCH-07-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241009-SFUSDCLOSURESMARCH-07-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241009-SFUSDCLOSURESMARCH-07-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Teachers, K-5 students, families, and community members leave Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy to march to Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco on Oct. 9, 2024, to protest against the potential closure of the school. The school is on the list of 11 San Francisco campuses that could close after this academic year as the district grapples with declining enrollment and a budget deficit. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fine said that closures are happening across the state and that, while painful, most boards approve and implement the plans without much squabbling. He said what eases the transitions is the way they’re usually rolled out. Most include at least a year of lead time and provide next steps for staff and students all at once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The parents already know exactly where their kids are going, all questions are answered,” he told KQED. “They probably have already hosted some open houses at the receiving schools so that the kids and families can start to be comfortable and meet people and integrate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oakland and San Francisco’s school boards have said the plans they’ve been presented disproportionately affect minority groups and don’t present clear pathways for students. Past board members argued that small school environments are good for student outcomes, and closing schools is painful for families who have built community.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The majority of districts follow through\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“Do we want a community school manager and a restorative justice coordinator at every school?” asked new OUSD board member Patrice Berry. “I do. I think that’s important.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those aren’t positions that the state covers in its base funding, though.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The hard part about this is you are used to a lot of resources at your schools,” Elliott Duchon, SFUSD’s state-appointed advisor, said to the board at last week’s meeting. “Social workers are wonderful, but they are not generally part of the school allocation. It’s not really something that’s covered in your base expenditures.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12025440 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-04-BL.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even paying for the positions California does require to “keep the lights on” — a principal, classroom teachers, clerks and janitors — at every SFUSD school will exceed the district’s unrestricted budget by more than $57 million next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the main arguments for consolidating school sites last fall was to free up funds to support auxiliary positions — such as counselors, social workers and specialists — that parents say are needs, not wants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need a smaller number of schools that keep better promises to kids,” Alameda County Superintendent Alysse Castro, who stepped up oversight in Oakland after the negative budget certification, said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Oakland’s negative budget certification is its first in more than 20 years, it hasn’t been skating by financially.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district’s budget had been categorized as qualified — the equivalent of a maintenance warning light in your car — for seven years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We adapt and balance a budget year by year, make cuts mid-year to get through the year,” Grant-Dawson told KQED last month. “What we’ve not done is not created a comprehensive plan for it to be sustainable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2023, Oakland \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11949458/oakland-teachers-strike-ends-as-union-reaches-agreement-with-school-district\">gave teachers a 10% raise\u003c/a> after a tense, weeklong strike. The raise was paid for, in part, with COVID-19 relief money, Davis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017856\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-007.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017856\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-007.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1332\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-007.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-007-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-007-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-007-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-007-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-007-1920x1279.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sahaana Garg, center, attends the Oakland Unified School District Board Meeting with her mom, Medha, right, and sister Naija, left, at La Escuelita Elementary School in Oakland on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. The School Board took public comment on a proposed merger of ten different schools. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>San Francisco covered overspending with pandemic funding as well, and its current three-year budget dips into reserves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For many years, SFUSD has relied on one-time funds to help us carry ourselves from year to year,” Su told the board last week. “If we make these cuts [to expenditures] now, we will be in a much better place in two years’ time where this district will be fully solvent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We will be able to give our teachers and educators and staff a level of stability and predictability that they need, which then translates to a level of stability and predictability that our students need, but we have to do this really hard thing now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the two decades Oakland has been in receivership, its school boards have come up with fiscal plans meant to set the district on a sustainable path, but they haven’t held up. The current iteration, dubbed the Re-Envision, Redesign, and Restructure plan, includes centralizing contracts for supplies and programs and potential staffing cuts. It’s been preliminarily approved but faces a final test next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco said it’s currently engaged in conversations to build its fiscal sustainability plan, which started under former superintendent Matt Wayne’s leadership and was mostly redone from scratch by Su last fall. Su is set to give insight into the staffing portion of the plan on Feb. 25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fine said whether the districts are able to get out of the red depends on if they commit to pushing budget cuts and possibly moving forward on site closures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The majority of [districts] follow through on their plans. The board adopts a plan and the board follows through on what’s required to implement the plan. The exceptions are the ones that we’re talking about,” he said. “Oakland is notorious for taking a plan and naming it five different times. All they do is change the name of the plan but never fully implement the plan. San Francisco has yet to come up with a plan, in my opinion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/shossaini\">\u003cem>Sara Hossaini\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Feb. 18: This story was updated to clarify that Mike Hutchinson, who was not present for public comment during the Oakland school board meeting in December, left his seat at the dais only after no motion had been made for a vote on the school closures.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": " San Francisco and Oakland school districts continue to face severe budget challenges, struggling with declining enrollment, rising costs and financial instability statewide. ",
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"title": "How Oakland and SF Ended Up Among 7 CA School Districts Who Can’t Pay Their Bills | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 9 a.m. Tuesday, Feb. 18\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/oakland-unified-school-district\">Oakland public school\u003c/a> parents, teachers and students packed La Escuelita Elementary School’s gym in December, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017719/oaklands-school-merger-plan-stalled-districts-huge-deficit-remains\">ready for a fight\u003c/a>. The district’s board was set to vote on a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12013739/oakland-school-board-spurns-campus-closures-plans-merge-some-schools-instead\">plan to merge 10 schools\u003c/a> — a modest proposal compared to the number recommended by an efficiency study to align Oakland’s campuses with enrollment but a nonstarter for school communities.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>After about 30 minutes of pleas from a long line of emotional students who shuffled to the podium, former board President Sam Davis paused the public comment period.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I was like, ‘Do we still want to hear public comment given that the guy whose idea this was isn’t even here?’” Davis recalled referring to board Vice President Mike Hutchinson, who had left his seat at the dais during the comment period after no motion was made. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Davis and Hutchinson sparred all fall about how to address the district’s massive — and growing — budget crisis. Davis believed the district needed to close schools while Hutchinson, who originally supported voting on the merger plan, pushed back against more drastic consolidations, saying there hadn’t been sufficient community engagement to do so. \u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re sitting in the meeting, and I’m like, ‘OK, is there a motion for this plan? And nobody makes a motion,” Davis said. “It’s not my place. I’m not going to make the motion.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We basically didn’t vote.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017852\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-033.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017852\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-033.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1332\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-033.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-033-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-033-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-033-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-033-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-033-1920x1279.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The Oakland Unified School District Board listens to public comment during a meeting at La Escuelita Elementary School in Oakland, California, on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. Students, families, educators, and community members raised their concerns about a proposed merger of their schools. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The anticlimactic finale of the school closure proposal is nothing new. Oakland’s school board has \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11905982/how-dare-you-oakland-school-closure-decision-inspires-new-opposition-efforts\">repeatedly floated, then backed off\u003c/a>, plans to close schools and impose other “draconian” cuts in the name of budget balancing. Lisa Grant-Dawson, the district’s chief budget officer, described it as a pattern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“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 with some commitment that ‘We’ll do something in the future,’” she told KQED. “That doesn’t happen, and we just reach the place where we’ve run out of space for us to be able to make amends as we have historically.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oakland — under state receivership since 2003 but now less than two years from regaining control — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023461/ousd-on-track-run-out-of-cash-after-avoiding-hard-decisions-scathing-letter-says\">certified a negative interim budget\u003c/a> in December. That designation puts it among just seven of nearly 1,000 California school districts that see no clear path to meeting their financial obligations over the next three years. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-unified-school-district\">San Francisco’s school district\u003c/a> is \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017631/embattled-sf-school-district-offer-hundreds-buyouts-potential-layoffs\">also on the list\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The two urban, considerably well-resourced districts are outliers among California’s districts with severe financial struggles. Their budgets are hundreds of millions larger. Mike Fine, the executive director of FCMAT, the financial company tasked with assisting California districts with financial management, said the reason they find themselves at the bottom is because of this skittish pattern.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Districts all over the state are dealing with many of the same issues,” he said. “What distinguishes the districts on the negative list from others is the districts on the negative list aren’t really dealing with their problem in a timely way. Oakland, San Francisco have [spent] lots of years of ignoring, of not dealing with the problem at hand. Of having the same conversation year over year over year.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A series of rolled-back plans\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Last fall, rumors and fears about \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12002125/as-san-francisco-school-closures-loom-frustrated-teachers-say-hiring-has-hit-a-wall\">looming school closures\u003c/a> and budget cuts swirled through Oakland and San Francisco’s schoolyards and board meetings. Like many districts across the state, both have experienced \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12014795/fewer-kids-are-going-to-california-public-schools-is-there-a-right-way-to-close-campuses\">declining enrollment\u003c/a>, shrinking the per-pupil funding they receive. COVID-19 relief money, which buoyed districts throughout the pandemic, is drying up.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In October, SFUSD released a plan to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12008405/these-san-francisco-schools-could-close-list-isnt-final\">close three schools and merge another eight\u003c/a>. After massive blowback, it was shelved, and the superintendent who proposed it \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12010008/sf-schools-crisis-is-spiraling-with-top-official-to-resign-heres-all-thats-happened\">was ousted\u003c/a>. Weeks later, Oakland \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12013739/oakland-school-board-spurns-campus-closures-plans-merge-some-schools-instead\">announced its more modest merger plan\u003c/a> — combining 10 schools that already share five campuses. Davis said this replaced a proposition to close a larger number of campuses that didn’t curry enough board support.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both districts have skirted around unpopular school closures for years. In 2006, SFUSD drastically scaled back a plan to close schools and abandoned another push for consolidations just before the pandemic. After opening more than 40 small schools in the early 2000s amid declining enrollment, Oakland \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11937906/oakland-school-board-halts-controversial-closure-plan-sparing-5-elementary-schools\">approved five closures\u003c/a> in 2022. The board reversed them before they took effect in 2023.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We should have emerged from [state] receivership at some point recently, and the fact that we’re still kind of eking along in receivership, why? Why haven’t we made the progress to get out of it?” Davis said. “It’s because we’ll be like, ‘OK, we’re going to close schools. No, we’re not going to close schools. OK, we’re going to make a plan. And then, what’s the plan?’”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12008830\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241009-SFUSDCLOSURESMARCH-07-BL-KQED.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12008830\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241009-SFUSDCLOSURESMARCH-07-BL-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241009-SFUSDCLOSURESMARCH-07-BL-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241009-SFUSDCLOSURESMARCH-07-BL-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241009-SFUSDCLOSURESMARCH-07-BL-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241009-SFUSDCLOSURESMARCH-07-BL-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241009-SFUSDCLOSURESMARCH-07-BL-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241009-SFUSDCLOSURESMARCH-07-BL-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Teachers, K-5 students, families, and community members leave Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy to march to Harvey Milk Plaza in the Castro neighborhood of San Francisco on Oct. 9, 2024, to protest against the potential closure of the school. The school is on the list of 11 San Francisco campuses that could close after this academic year as the district grapples with declining enrollment and a budget deficit. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Fine said that closures are happening across the state and that, while painful, most boards approve and implement the plans without much squabbling. He said what eases the transitions is the way they’re usually rolled out. Most include at least a year of lead time and provide next steps for staff and students all at once.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The parents already know exactly where their kids are going, all questions are answered,” he told KQED. “They probably have already hosted some open houses at the receiving schools so that the kids and families can start to be comfortable and meet people and integrate.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oakland and San Francisco’s school boards have said the plans they’ve been presented disproportionately affect minority groups and don’t present clear pathways for students. Past board members argued that small school environments are good for student outcomes, and closing schools is painful for families who have built community.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The majority of districts follow through\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>“Do we want a community school manager and a restorative justice coordinator at every school?” asked new OUSD board member Patrice Berry. “I do. I think that’s important.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Those aren’t positions that the state covers in its base funding, though.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The hard part about this is you are used to a lot of resources at your schools,” Elliott Duchon, SFUSD’s state-appointed advisor, said to the board at last week’s meeting. “Social workers are wonderful, but they are not generally part of the school allocation. It’s not really something that’s covered in your base expenditures.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even paying for the positions California does require to “keep the lights on” — a principal, classroom teachers, clerks and janitors — at every SFUSD school will exceed the district’s unrestricted budget by more than $57 million next year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of the main arguments for consolidating school sites last fall was to free up funds to support auxiliary positions — such as counselors, social workers and specialists — that parents say are needs, not wants.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need a smaller number of schools that keep better promises to kids,” Alameda County Superintendent Alysse Castro, who stepped up oversight in Oakland after the negative budget certification, said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While Oakland’s negative budget certification is its first in more than 20 years, it hasn’t been skating by financially.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district’s budget had been categorized as qualified — the equivalent of a maintenance warning light in your car — for seven years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We adapt and balance a budget year by year, make cuts mid-year to get through the year,” Grant-Dawson told KQED last month. “What we’ve not done is not created a comprehensive plan for it to be sustainable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In 2023, Oakland \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11949458/oakland-teachers-strike-ends-as-union-reaches-agreement-with-school-district\">gave teachers a 10% raise\u003c/a> after a tense, weeklong strike. The raise was paid for, in part, with COVID-19 relief money, Davis said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12017856\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003ca href=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-007.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12017856\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-007.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1332\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-007.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-007-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-007-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-007-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-007-1536x1023.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/12/20241211-OUSDMergerVote-JY-007-1920x1279.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Sahaana Garg, center, attends the Oakland Unified School District Board Meeting with her mom, Medha, right, and sister Naija, left, at La Escuelita Elementary School in Oakland on Wednesday, Dec. 11, 2024. The School Board took public comment on a proposed merger of ten different schools. \u003ccite>(Juliana Yamada/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>San Francisco covered overspending with pandemic funding as well, and its current three-year budget dips into reserves.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For many years, SFUSD has relied on one-time funds to help us carry ourselves from year to year,” Su told the board last week. “If we make these cuts [to expenditures] now, we will be in a much better place in two years’ time where this district will be fully solvent.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We will be able to give our teachers and educators and staff a level of stability and predictability that they need, which then translates to a level of stability and predictability that our students need, but we have to do this really hard thing now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For the two decades Oakland has been in receivership, its school boards have come up with fiscal plans meant to set the district on a sustainable path, but they haven’t held up. The current iteration, dubbed the Re-Envision, Redesign, and Restructure plan, includes centralizing contracts for supplies and programs and potential staffing cuts. It’s been preliminarily approved but faces a final test next week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>San Francisco said it’s currently engaged in conversations to build its fiscal sustainability plan, which started under former superintendent Matt Wayne’s leadership and was mostly redone from scratch by Su last fall. Su is set to give insight into the staffing portion of the plan on Feb. 25.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fine said whether the districts are able to get out of the red depends on if they commit to pushing budget cuts and possibly moving forward on site closures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The majority of [districts] follow through on their plans. The board adopts a plan and the board follows through on what’s required to implement the plan. The exceptions are the ones that we’re talking about,” he said. “Oakland is notorious for taking a plan and naming it five different times. All they do is change the name of the plan but never fully implement the plan. San Francisco has yet to come up with a plan, in my opinion.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>KQED’s \u003c/em>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/author/shossaini\">\u003cem>Sara Hossaini\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> contributed to this report.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Feb. 18: This story was updated to clarify that Mike Hutchinson, who was not present for public comment during the Oakland school board meeting in December, left his seat at the dais only after no motion had been made for a vote on the school closures.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>After an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12010008/sf-schools-crisis-is-spiraling-with-top-official-to-resign-heres-all-thats-happened\">unpopular campus closure plan\u003c/a> was put on ice last fall, San Francisco’s public schools chief is poised to issue an only slightly less controversial cost-cutting demand — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017631/embattled-sf-school-district-offer-hundreds-buyouts-potential-layoffs\">layoffs\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Superintendent Maria Su presented a sparse base staffing model for school sites at Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting, telling commissioners it was first and foremost aimed at “keeping the lights on” amid a huge budget shortfall for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-unified-school-district\">San Francisco Unified School District\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are, at this moment in time, facing a very large deficit,” she said, noting that the $113 million gap that must be closed “represents 10% of our budget, and it requires us to make really difficult decisions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The staffing model allocates funding for state-required positions, which include principals, clerks, classroom teachers and a few auxiliary roles — but even just covering those expenses puts the district almost $58 million over budget, state adviser Elliott Duchon said. That would require SFUSD to dip into funds that are supposed to be targeted toward low-income and foster youth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not clear exactly how many positions will be funded at each school, but in January, Su said about 535 staffers would need to be cut since personnel makes up the “bulk” of the district’s ongoing costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are going to put in front of you in a few short months a list of people that are our colleagues, our friends, our neighbors, our kid’s favorite teacher,” Su told the board in January. “It is going to be awful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supplemental roles, like counselors, social workers and assistant principals, won’t be a given. Whether schools can pay for those positions will depend on how statewide, restricted and grant funding shake out in the spring — much to the ire of parents, staff and board commissioners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we say as a district is sufficient for our students in our schools may just be different than what the state defines as a base allocation,” Board President Phil Kim shot back after Duchon, who has veto power over district spending, said staffing expectations might need to change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The hard part about this is you are used to a lot of resources at your schools,” Duchon told the board. “Social workers are wonderful, but they are not generally part of the school allocation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12025663\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12025663\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-04-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-04-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-04-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-04-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-04-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-04-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-04-BL-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Educators and union leaders ride on a trolley car from Malcolm X Academy Elementary School to Buena Vista Horace Mann K–8 Community School in San Francisco’s Mission District on Feb. 4, 2025. The groups held a press conference to announce the launch of the “We Can’t Wait” campaign, a statewide effort advocating for improved class sizes, better wages and safer schools for educators and students. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The staffing cuts will affect both the district’s central office and school sites, though officials have not specified how they will be split.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the central office, Su has classified departments under two umbrellas: districtwide school supports and operations. Each department head has been instructed to make recommendations to cut anywhere from 20% to 100% of their budgets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, the central office has committed to cutting $20 million in unrestricted funds, while other positions and services will likely be cut when restricted dollars are distributed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are certain programs or initiatives within central office and within divisions that we’re asking folks to completely eliminate because we do not have the luxury of dollars to do it,” Su told the board on Tuesday night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other positions will be cut from school sites. Layoff notices have to go out by mid-March and will primarily affect staff who are not in the state’s definition of “base” funding. Parents and educators say many of these roles deemed “supplemental” are essential for their children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SFUSD isn’t planning to eliminate all social work positions or the other supplemental roles that parents say are needs, not wants. However, Su said any of the funding for such educators is going to have to come out of the district’s restricted money, which has stricter use parameters and is more variable since the state and federal governments allocate some. Duchon noted that the district won’t know exactly how much is available until Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget revision in May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More precise numbers for layoffs also depend on how many veteran educators take a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017631/embattled-sf-school-district-offer-hundreds-buyouts-potential-layoffs\">buyout SFUSD offered in December\u003c/a>. It would be reversed if at least 314 didn’t take the deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Site staffing models haven’t been presented publicly, but school principals and leaders have gotten drafts, according to Cassondra Curiel, president of United Educators of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That roll-out hasn’t gone smoothly. While some schools found out they might lose staff and be forced to combine more classes, Curiel said administrators have not been able to get answers to clarifying questions nor sustain much communication with the central office at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While we didn’t always agree with [former Superintendent Matt] Wayne, at least he communicated with us,” she told KQED last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12010449\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12010449\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-08-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-08-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-08-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-08-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-08-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-08-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-08-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maria Su laughs during a press event in front of the SFUSD offices in San Francisco on Oct. 21, 2024. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Su did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday, but she acknowledged last month that she did not meet the district’s expectation to have “deep conversations” with labor partners related to significant decisions like the staffing model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UESF has also joined a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12025440/schools-face-cuts-california-teachers-unions-band-together-demands\">statewide union bargaining effort\u003c/a> calling for fully staffed schools. It delivered a petition with its demands and more than 3,000 signatures to the board on Tuesday night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The union noted that some classroom teachers would likely get pink slips since senior educators who have moved to support roles targeted for layoff, like English learning specialists, would have the option to go back to the classroom, bumping a newer employee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents and students also pushed back against the sparse staffing plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What happens when dedicated social workers like Ms. Carrie Tanabi at McKinley Elementary are potentially eliminated? The plan, as it is presented to us, does not seem to keep the lights on. It keeps it dim for our children’s future,” parent Rasheq Zarif said at Tuesday’s meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why are school counselors — who constantly support students in their success goals, whether it is to advance, catch up or be on track — classified under pending available funding?” student board delegate Yzabel Lam said.[aside postID=news_12017631 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/SFUSDStudentsFamiliesGetty.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Duchon, the state adviser assigned to SFUSD, said that as enrollment decreases, realigning staffing levels is a prerequisite for getting the district out of a year-over-year budget hole, which would balloon to $127 million by 2027 if no changes are made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Until you do that, you will really not have and be able to utilize the resources that are available to you from a very generous city,” he told board members at the January meeting. The district is under a hiring freeze enforced by the state, which won’t be reversed until it stops overspending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As district staff turns to evaluate what restricted funding sources could be used to pay for supplemental positions and programs, unprecedented expenses like the Los Angeles wildfires and federal changes since Newsom’s January budget proposal could affect public school spending by the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are also new questions around federal dollars under the Trump administration, which has promised to cut funding to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12025068/sf-leaders-vow-to-protect-transgender-students-after-latest-trump-threat-to-withhold-funding\">schools that support transgender students\u003c/a> and suggested drastic \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/65195/trump-administration-targets-education-department-research-arm-in-latest-cuts\">cuts to the Department of Education\u003c/a>. SFUSD relies on around $50 million per year from the federal government for special education and supplemental academic resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we have to make additional cuts … because of certain policies that’s happening at the federal level, I don’t even know how we can sustain that,” Su told the board. “It would devastate this district.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "San Francisco’s public schools chief presented a sparse base staffing model that could include hundreds of layoffs and leave supplemental roles in limbo, depending on further funding.",
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"title": "SF School Staffing Cuts Leave Counselors, Social Workers on the Chopping Block | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>After an \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12010008/sf-schools-crisis-is-spiraling-with-top-official-to-resign-heres-all-thats-happened\">unpopular campus closure plan\u003c/a> was put on ice last fall, San Francisco’s public schools chief is poised to issue an only slightly less controversial cost-cutting demand — \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017631/embattled-sf-school-district-offer-hundreds-buyouts-potential-layoffs\">layoffs\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Superintendent Maria Su presented a sparse base staffing model for school sites at Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting, telling commissioners it was first and foremost aimed at “keeping the lights on” amid a huge budget shortfall for the \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-unified-school-district\">San Francisco Unified School District\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are, at this moment in time, facing a very large deficit,” she said, noting that the $113 million gap that must be closed “represents 10% of our budget, and it requires us to make really difficult decisions.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The staffing model allocates funding for state-required positions, which include principals, clerks, classroom teachers and a few auxiliary roles — but even just covering those expenses puts the district almost $58 million over budget, state adviser Elliott Duchon said. That would require SFUSD to dip into funds that are supposed to be targeted toward low-income and foster youth.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>It’s not clear exactly how many positions will be funded at each school, but in January, Su said about 535 staffers would need to be cut since personnel makes up the “bulk” of the district’s ongoing costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are going to put in front of you in a few short months a list of people that are our colleagues, our friends, our neighbors, our kid’s favorite teacher,” Su told the board in January. “It is going to be awful.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Supplemental roles, like counselors, social workers and assistant principals, won’t be a given. Whether schools can pay for those positions will depend on how statewide, restricted and grant funding shake out in the spring — much to the ire of parents, staff and board commissioners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we say as a district is sufficient for our students in our schools may just be different than what the state defines as a base allocation,” Board President Phil Kim shot back after Duchon, who has veto power over district spending, said staffing expectations might need to change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The hard part about this is you are used to a lot of resources at your schools,” Duchon told the board. “Social workers are wonderful, but they are not generally part of the school allocation.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12025663\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12025663\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-04-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-04-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-04-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-04-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-04-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-04-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-04-BL-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Educators and union leaders ride on a trolley car from Malcolm X Academy Elementary School to Buena Vista Horace Mann K–8 Community School in San Francisco’s Mission District on Feb. 4, 2025. The groups held a press conference to announce the launch of the “We Can’t Wait” campaign, a statewide effort advocating for improved class sizes, better wages and safer schools for educators and students. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The staffing cuts will affect both the district’s central office and school sites, though officials have not specified how they will be split.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In the central office, Su has classified departments under two umbrellas: districtwide school supports and operations. Each department head has been instructed to make recommendations to cut anywhere from 20% to 100% of their budgets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, the central office has committed to cutting $20 million in unrestricted funds, while other positions and services will likely be cut when restricted dollars are distributed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are certain programs or initiatives within central office and within divisions that we’re asking folks to completely eliminate because we do not have the luxury of dollars to do it,” Su told the board on Tuesday night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The other positions will be cut from school sites. Layoff notices have to go out by mid-March and will primarily affect staff who are not in the state’s definition of “base” funding. Parents and educators say many of these roles deemed “supplemental” are essential for their children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SFUSD isn’t planning to eliminate all social work positions or the other supplemental roles that parents say are needs, not wants. However, Su said any of the funding for such educators is going to have to come out of the district’s restricted money, which has stricter use parameters and is more variable since the state and federal governments allocate some. Duchon noted that the district won’t know exactly how much is available until Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget revision in May.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>More precise numbers for layoffs also depend on how many veteran educators take a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017631/embattled-sf-school-district-offer-hundreds-buyouts-potential-layoffs\">buyout SFUSD offered in December\u003c/a>. It would be reversed if at least 314 didn’t take the deal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Site staffing models haven’t been presented publicly, but school principals and leaders have gotten drafts, according to Cassondra Curiel, president of United Educators of San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That roll-out hasn’t gone smoothly. While some schools found out they might lose staff and be forced to combine more classes, Curiel said administrators have not been able to get answers to clarifying questions nor sustain much communication with the central office at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“While we didn’t always agree with [former Superintendent Matt] Wayne, at least he communicated with us,” she told KQED last week.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12010449\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12010449\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-08-KQED.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-08-KQED.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-08-KQED-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-08-KQED-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-08-KQED-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-08-KQED-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2024/10/241021-SFUSD-BREED-STATE-PRESSER-MD-08-KQED-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Maria Su laughs during a press event in front of the SFUSD offices in San Francisco on Oct. 21, 2024. \u003ccite>(Martin do Nascimento/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Su did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday, but she acknowledged last month that she did not meet the district’s expectation to have “deep conversations” with labor partners related to significant decisions like the staffing model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UESF has also joined a \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12025440/schools-face-cuts-california-teachers-unions-band-together-demands\">statewide union bargaining effort\u003c/a> calling for fully staffed schools. It delivered a petition with its demands and more than 3,000 signatures to the board on Tuesday night.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The union noted that some classroom teachers would likely get pink slips since senior educators who have moved to support roles targeted for layoff, like English learning specialists, would have the option to go back to the classroom, bumping a newer employee.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Parents and students also pushed back against the sparse staffing plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What happens when dedicated social workers like Ms. Carrie Tanabi at McKinley Elementary are potentially eliminated? The plan, as it is presented to us, does not seem to keep the lights on. It keeps it dim for our children’s future,” parent Rasheq Zarif said at Tuesday’s meeting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Why are school counselors — who constantly support students in their success goals, whether it is to advance, catch up or be on track — classified under pending available funding?” student board delegate Yzabel Lam said.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Duchon, the state adviser assigned to SFUSD, said that as enrollment decreases, realigning staffing levels is a prerequisite for getting the district out of a year-over-year budget hole, which would balloon to $127 million by 2027 if no changes are made.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Until you do that, you will really not have and be able to utilize the resources that are available to you from a very generous city,” he told board members at the January meeting. The district is under a hiring freeze enforced by the state, which won’t be reversed until it stops overspending.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>As district staff turns to evaluate what restricted funding sources could be used to pay for supplemental positions and programs, unprecedented expenses like the Los Angeles wildfires and federal changes since Newsom’s January budget proposal could affect public school spending by the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There are also new questions around federal dollars under the Trump administration, which has promised to cut funding to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12025068/sf-leaders-vow-to-protect-transgender-students-after-latest-trump-threat-to-withhold-funding\">schools that support transgender students\u003c/a> and suggested drastic \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/mindshift/65195/trump-administration-targets-education-department-research-arm-in-latest-cuts\">cuts to the Department of Education\u003c/a>. SFUSD relies on around $50 million per year from the federal government for special education and supplemental academic resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If we have to make additional cuts … because of certain policies that’s happening at the federal level, I don’t even know how we can sustain that,” Su told the board. “It would devastate this district.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "As Schools Face Cuts, California Teachers Unions Band Together on Demands",
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"headTitle": "As Schools Face Cuts, California Teachers Unions Band Together on Demands | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 3:45 p.m. Tuesday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area\">Bay Area\u003c/a> teachers unions joined a statewide bargaining campaign Tuesday, kicking off coordinated negotiations with more than 30 school districts across California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Traditionally, teachers’ unions negotiate individually with their districts. This statewide campaign, dubbed “We Can’t Wait,” aims to align the bargaining sessions for more than 77,000 educators — including \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-unified-school-district\">in San Francisco\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/oakland-unified-school-district\">Oakland\u003c/a> and San José — to demand smaller class sizes, more resources, better wages and benefits for teachers and improved mental health support for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For us to be coordinating our fight at the same time right now is a unifying effort and a really powerful statement that we represent what the community of California needs, what students and families need,” said Cassondra Curiel, the president of United Educators in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said that during the COVID-19 pandemic, unions across the state saw that they \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12014795/fewer-kids-are-going-to-california-public-schools-is-there-a-right-way-to-close-campuses\">faced similar challenges,\u003c/a> such as understaffing and frequent changes to curriculum and school resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It really also allowed us to see where and how many of our issues in our districts are so similar and what the benefit would be for us to put ourselves together on it. That’s essentially when we decided” to unify bargaining timelines, Curiel told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12025666\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12025666\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-13-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-13-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-13-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-13-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-13-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-13-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-13-BL-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cassondra Curiel, president of United Educators of San Francisco, speaks during a press conference at Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School in San Francisco’s Mission District on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In both San Francisco and Oakland, budget shortfalls spurred plans to close or merge some schools last fall — proposals that were scaled back, delayed or called off amid intense controversy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the unions are mostly aligned on their overarching demands, how that looks in each district will be different, according to Curiel. She joined parents and other UESF members who traveled by motorized cable car to schools across the city to speak about their demands — like having Chinese-speaking parent liaisons, full-time school site nurses and dedicated social workers — at campuses from Chinatown to Hunter’s Point on Tuesday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I chose Gordon J. Lau for my students because of their teacher retention, strong leadership and low turnover rate,” said Brittany Cuartelon, a parent of three students at the elementary school. “I also chose Lau because of the access to enrichment programs and specialty teachers like arts, teachers, special ed teachers, speech pathologists and others … but we are seeing less and less of this as teachers are being let go, and these programs are being cut.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UESF has sparred with the San Francisco Unified School District in recent years, accusing it of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12002125/as-san-francisco-school-closures-loom-frustrated-teachers-say-hiring-has-hit-a-wall\">incompetence in hiring\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11908196/sfusd-teachers-protest-missed-paychecks-and-payroll-glitches-at-headquarters-overnight-sfusd\">botching a payroll system\u003c/a>, and sowing confusion and fear as it \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12010008/sf-schools-crisis-is-spiraling-with-top-official-to-resign-heres-all-thats-happened\">considered closing schools\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12025664\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12025664 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-05-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-05-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-05-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-05-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-05-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-05-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-05-BL-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Perry Siniard, a fourth-grade teacher, speaks during a press conference at Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School in San Francisco’s Mission District on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At the start of this school year, there were about 100 classrooms across the district without permanent teachers. In 2022 and 2023, many educators went without proper pay and had insurance and tax-filing issues after the district introduced a new payroll system that proved a failure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SFUSD is now preparing its 2025–2026 budget in the face of a massive deficit. While it shelved the controversial school closure plan in the fall, officials have said that without consolidations, school services will be pared down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, officials shared a version of a sparse new staffing formula with school principals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It doesn’t look like the school sites we all work at, the school sites that our families and students expect,” Curiel said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Independence High School Principal Anna Klafter asked SFUSD board members last week to address why there were no mental health providers, social workers, nurses or counselors included in the plan. Other speakers on Tuesday’s UESF school tour noted that assistant principals weren’t budgeted in the model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district also announced a buy-out option for some staff, aimed at reducing layoffs and saving money spent on higher salaries for more experienced teachers, in December. The deadline for educators to take the deal is Feb. 21, but if fewer than 314 sign up, it will be voided. Curiel said if that’s the case, the union expects union members to receive pink slips this spring and is prepared to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017631/embattled-sf-school-district-offer-hundreds-buyouts-potential-layoffs\">fight layoffs\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12025664\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12025665\" style=\"font-weight: bold;background-color: transparent;color: #767676\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-08-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-08-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-08-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-08-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-08-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-08-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-08-BL-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Parent Blanca Fabiola Catalan speaks during a press conference at Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School in San Francisco’s Mission District on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>UESF has called for necessary funding cuts to come from the district’s administration, pointing to high-salary positions in what it calls a “bloated” central office. But SFUSD said it has made the cuts it can away from children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Darcie Chan Blackburn, an English learning specialist at Sheridan Elementary School, said the draft staffing formula includes cutting one teacher and adding a third combined class from her campus. She doesn’t know if her position will be budgeted for at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sheridan already has combined second-third grade and fourth-fifth grade classes and will add a kindergarten-first grade combo next fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID=news_12024772 hero='https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/01/20250130_SSUTownHall_GC-5-1020x680.jpg']\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The third-grade students who are getting second-grade English language arts curriculum now are going to go up to a fourth-fifth class [next year],” Chan Blackburn said. “Well, the fourth-fifth is looping to the fifth-grade curriculum next year, so this third grader is going from second-grade English language arts to fifth-grade English language arts.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That just pushes our enrollment lower because what family really wants their child to be in a split grade level?” she asked.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oakland is in a similar situation, facing a $150 million budget deficit while its \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017719/oaklands-school-merger-plan-stalled-districts-huge-deficit-remains\">board refuses to vote on a school consolidation plan\u003c/a>. Last month, it \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12023461/ousd-on-track-run-out-of-cash-after-avoiding-hard-decisions-scathing-letter-says\">certified a negative budget\u003c/a> for the first time in more than 20 years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“These districts are in these positions because they didn’t listen to us in the first place,” Curiel said. “We’ve been saying that central offices should prioritize spending on students — really centering families and students at school sites — and if they were doing that, then they wouldn’t be sitting on the millions and millions and millions of dollars in reserve that they currently have in their bank accounts right now.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Oakland Educators Association said it is seeking livable wages for the Bay Area, more paraeducator and mental health support, and keeping community schools open.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>OEA and UESF leaders will join Berkeley and West Contra Costa union members and Jeff Frietas, the president of the California Federation of Teachers, for a rally in the East Bay on Tuesday afternoon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re really hoping that this campaign … will bring a light to the circumstances that we work under to achieve what is the foundation of our democratic society every day,” Curiel said. “And what it needs to survive moving forward and how that represents what the families and the citizens of one of the biggest states in the country should really be expecting in public schools.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Bay Area teachers unions are joining a statewide bargaining campaign to demand smaller class sizes, more resources, and increased investment in teachers and students.",
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"title": "As Schools Face Cuts, California Teachers Unions Band Together on Demands | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>Updated 3:45 p.m. Tuesday\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/bay-area\">Bay Area\u003c/a> teachers unions joined a statewide bargaining campaign Tuesday, kicking off coordinated negotiations with more than 30 school districts across California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Traditionally, teachers’ unions negotiate individually with their districts. This statewide campaign, dubbed “We Can’t Wait,” aims to align the bargaining sessions for more than 77,000 educators — including \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/san-francisco-unified-school-district\">in San Francisco\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/tag/oakland-unified-school-district\">Oakland\u003c/a> and San José — to demand smaller class sizes, more resources, better wages and benefits for teachers and improved mental health support for students.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“For us to be coordinating our fight at the same time right now is a unifying effort and a really powerful statement that we represent what the community of California needs, what students and families need,” said Cassondra Curiel, the president of United Educators in San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>She said that during the COVID-19 pandemic, unions across the state saw that they \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12014795/fewer-kids-are-going-to-california-public-schools-is-there-a-right-way-to-close-campuses\">faced similar challenges,\u003c/a> such as understaffing and frequent changes to curriculum and school resources.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It really also allowed us to see where and how many of our issues in our districts are so similar and what the benefit would be for us to put ourselves together on it. That’s essentially when we decided” to unify bargaining timelines, Curiel told KQED.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12025666\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12025666\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-13-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-13-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-13-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-13-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-13-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-13-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-13-BL-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Cassondra Curiel, president of United Educators of San Francisco, speaks during a press conference at Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School in San Francisco’s Mission District on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>In both San Francisco and Oakland, budget shortfalls spurred plans to close or merge some schools last fall — proposals that were scaled back, delayed or called off amid intense controversy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the unions are mostly aligned on their overarching demands, how that looks in each district will be different, according to Curiel. She joined parents and other UESF members who traveled by motorized cable car to schools across the city to speak about their demands — like having Chinese-speaking parent liaisons, full-time school site nurses and dedicated social workers — at campuses from Chinatown to Hunter’s Point on Tuesday morning.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I chose Gordon J. Lau for my students because of their teacher retention, strong leadership and low turnover rate,” said Brittany Cuartelon, a parent of three students at the elementary school. “I also chose Lau because of the access to enrichment programs and specialty teachers like arts, teachers, special ed teachers, speech pathologists and others … but we are seeing less and less of this as teachers are being let go, and these programs are being cut.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>UESF has sparred with the San Francisco Unified School District in recent years, accusing it of \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12002125/as-san-francisco-school-closures-loom-frustrated-teachers-say-hiring-has-hit-a-wall\">incompetence in hiring\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11908196/sfusd-teachers-protest-missed-paychecks-and-payroll-glitches-at-headquarters-overnight-sfusd\">botching a payroll system\u003c/a>, and sowing confusion and fear as it \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12010008/sf-schools-crisis-is-spiraling-with-top-official-to-resign-heres-all-thats-happened\">considered closing schools\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12025664\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-12025664 size-full\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-05-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-05-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-05-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-05-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-05-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-05-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-05-BL-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Perry Siniard, a fourth-grade teacher, speaks during a press conference at Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School in San Francisco’s Mission District on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>At the start of this school year, there were about 100 classrooms across the district without permanent teachers. In 2022 and 2023, many educators went without proper pay and had insurance and tax-filing issues after the district introduced a new payroll system that proved a failure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>SFUSD is now preparing its 2025–2026 budget in the face of a massive deficit. While it shelved the controversial school closure plan in the fall, officials have said that without consolidations, school services will be pared down.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last month, officials shared a version of a sparse new staffing formula with school principals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It doesn’t look like the school sites we all work at, the school sites that our families and students expect,” Curiel said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Independence High School Principal Anna Klafter asked SFUSD board members last week to address why there were no mental health providers, social workers, nurses or counselors included in the plan. Other speakers on Tuesday’s UESF school tour noted that assistant principals weren’t budgeted in the model.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The district also announced a buy-out option for some staff, aimed at reducing layoffs and saving money spent on higher salaries for more experienced teachers, in December. The deadline for educators to take the deal is Feb. 21, but if fewer than 314 sign up, it will be voided. Curiel said if that’s the case, the union expects union members to receive pink slips this spring and is prepared to \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/12017631/embattled-sf-school-district-offer-hundreds-buyouts-potential-layoffs\">fight layoffs\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_12025664\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 2000px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12025665\" style=\"font-weight: bold;background-color: transparent;color: #767676\" src=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-08-BL.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1333\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-08-BL.jpg 2000w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-08-BL-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-08-BL-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-08-BL-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-08-BL-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2025/02/250204-WeCantWait-08-BL-1920x1280.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 2000px) 100vw, 2000px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Parent Blanca Fabiola Catalan speaks during a press conference at Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School in San Francisco’s Mission District on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. \u003ccite>(Beth LaBerge/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>UESF has called for necessary funding cuts to come from the district’s administration, pointing to high-salary positions in what it calls a “bloated” central office. But SFUSD said it has made the cuts it can away from children.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Darcie Chan Blackburn, an English learning specialist at Sheridan Elementary School, said the draft staffing formula includes cutting one teacher and adding a third combined class from her campus. She doesn’t know if her position will be budgeted for at all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sheridan already has combined second-third grade and fourth-fifth grade classes and will add a kindergarten-first grade combo next fall.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"soldout": {
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