More than 100 parents, teachers and students gathered Monday night at a San Francisco Unified School District meeting to voice their concerns on potential staffing cuts at the city’s eight K-8 schools.
The district is giving schools less discretion over their budgets in an attempt to ensure all campuses have similar amounts of staffing, parents and teachers said.
The change is an attempt at equity, but could instead disrupt school-specific plans that teachers, administrators and parents have crafted over the years: Where one school might have chosen to use funds to hire more teachers and reduce classroom sizes, the district will now instruct schools to have a standardized number of staff, potentially resulting in larger classes and staff cuts, parents and teachers said.
“When you said you know the concerns, why aren’t you talking about cutting 555 Franklin [the school district’s headquarters] before you touch any school?” said Bernice Casey, a parent at Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School. Around her, some parents and teachers waved signs that read “Equity not equality!”
Claudia Delarios-Moran, the principal of Buena Vista, said that the K-8 model “wasn’t considered” when the district chose to make staffing cuts. She and others argued that the K-8 model mainly serves newcomers, English language learners and unhoused families. Buena Vista Horace Mann, Delarios-Moran said, needs more staffing, not less.
The school district’s plans show Buena Vista Horace Mann losing one fourth-grade teacher and one fifth-grade teacher, said Delarios-Moran. Its middle school would lose one teacher each in physical education, English, Spanish and math. It would also lose an instructional coach position, according to Delarios-Moran. The size of each class from fourth grade to eighth grade would increase from the current 22 to 33 students.
About 74.6 percent of the families who have children at Buena Vista are economically disadvantaged, according to Casey, who only learned about the impending cuts last week, during a Feb. 29 school meeting.
Casey and her comrades from Buena Vista led the charge against the district with angry comments that almost overwhelmed the district advisory meeting, which was supposed to focus on a presentation measuring the efficacy of the K-8 model and, potentially, decide the fate of that model.
About a quarter of those who spoke up were students, including toddlers. “Students, I’m so proud of you because I really feel like you’re living out the values that you’ve learned over the years at Buena Vista Horace Mann School,” said Delarios-Moran. “You’re being active in your community. You’re standing up for yourselves and for your classmates, for your families, your younger sisters and brothers, your cousins, your neighbors.”
At the Bessie Carmichael School PreK-8 Filipino Education Center in SoMa, the two social-worker positions would be reduced to one which, as many of those who spoke at the meeting said, would be inadequate for a school that has a significant number of families experiencing homelessness, food insecurity and other trauma.
“Students as young as first grade experience mental-health concerns such as anxiety, depression and self-harm, whereas our middle school student challenges are well-known,” said Kate Calimquim, one of the two social workers at Bessie Carmichael, which is one school but two campuses separated by a 12-minute walk. Calimquim said that she was “the sole social worker” earlier in the year, and that it was “not practical or sustainable” to have a single social worker for both campuses.
Rooftop School TK-8 in Twin Peaks would lose one of its kindergarten positions. “There seems to be a deficit mindset with the whole setup of what we’re discussing around resource allocations, and that needs to be addressed,” said Darren Kawaii, principal of Rooftop School.
He also pointed out there was so much inaccurate data in the slide deck used in the presentation that the committee should not rely on it to decide on the K-8 model or make future decisions on the allocation of resources to K-8 schools.
Nevertheless, SFUSD Superintendent Matt Wayne insisted the district needs fewer schools, “to be able to provide the opportunities we want for our students.”
A young child present booed.
K-8 schools relieve parents, in part, by ensuring they do not have to apply for middle school, a burden. Advocates say that staying at the same school for almost a decade leads to closer relationships for teachers and students alike. Often serving immigrant students, multiple K-8 schools offer language pathway programs that include Korean, Cantonese, Mandarin and Spanish, and gradually increase the proportion of English through the years.
The school district, for its part, acknowledged those benefits. But it also countered that some K-8 schools lack economies of scale, have high staff turnover rates and prevent students from getting access to opportunities available at larger middle schools, among other drawbacks.
Parents like Casey are also worried about the sustainability of Buena Vista’s language immersion model. Buena Vista’s younger students receive 90 percent of their instruction in Spanish, which gradually decreases to 50 percent as they grow older. Students accepted to those programs usually include two-thirds who are bilingual or native Spanish speakers, and a third of English-only students. Other K-8 schools provide one-way immersion programs, or teach world language in elementary schools.
“Now the district is, basically, from where I sit as a parent, not allowing my family to have the school that we signed up for, which is a bilingual, bicultural, immersive experience, K through eight,” said Casey, who wants her younger children to enjoy the same environment that her older child did. The staffing cuts, she said, could prevent that.
SFUSD enrollment across all grades has decreased by more than 4,000 students since 2012-13, largely due to local demographic shifts; it will lose another 2,700 students from transitional kindergarten through eighth grade by 2032, according to the district. In the 2023-24 school year, however, seven of the eight San Francisco K-8 schools had more enrollment than the state average.
“I don’t want 33 kids in my class,” said a child wearing a pink beanie. “Because I think my teacher will get really stressed out and they might wanna quit and lots of kids might not be listening. Also I don’t want teachers to get mad, raise their voice, stuff like that.”
SFUSD parent here, wondering why we haven’t seen the school board move forward with the new enrollment system that’s been talked about for years? It seems stupid to make decisions based on a model that’s on its way out anyway. Closing schools should be a last resort. Jamming more kids into crumbling schools and destabilizing communities will drive additional teacher burnout and is certainly not the way to attract more families to SFUSD. Also, check out the UESF report on administrative bloat – let’s urge our elected leaders to explore all options for “balance resources” before jumping right to closing schools. https://drive.google.com/file/d/13yqmg3Qwrxchh8ggeMEcHpLEqb6aIoIO/view
The SFUSD Board was not paying attention to the operations of the
schools. For instance, Horace Mann school was rat infested.
Standards were lowered to “Diverse, Equity, and Inclusion”,
thus the skills which the students need to be independent and
productive as adults, i.e., reading comprehension and mathematic
skills, have been ignored. Now, the chickens have come home to
roost. Many employers were disgusted with the functional illiteracy
of young people entering from the SFUSD to the work force. It will
required a stricter attention to instruction, a more accountable
SFUSD Board, and the students being held to traditional academic
standards.
“Standards were lowered to “Diverse, Equity, and Inclusion”,
thus the skills which the students need to be independent and
productive as adults, i.e., reading comprehension and mathematic
skills, have been ignored. ”
So that’s just incorrect.
Please see through the false narrative of “overstaffed” schools. The superintendent is here to gut public education and proliferate charter schools.
See also UESF report on restructuring of central office. 555 thrives while making 6 figure salaries while they continue to push the schools into survival mode. Beyond disgusting.
I know someone who works at an elementary school that’s often been considered for consolidation.
This teacher has only about 8 kids in their class a day. consolidation makes sense. That student teacher ratio is not sustainable.
Campers,
Retired Special Ed teacher here (SED).
How big are your hearts, really ?
The Student Population is down around 8,000 you say ?
The Homeless Population is around 8,000 you say ?
Why close schools when you can quickly convert them to Homeless Shelters ?
SFUSD students do not need to be isolated from the homeless.
Many of them and their classmates are already homeless.
Take them in.
There is room at The Inn.
Go Niners !!
h.
Ironically, former Superintendent Vincent Matthews now serves as Executive Coach at the National Center for Urban School Transportation.
I have taught at many middle schools and K-8 schools in the district. Stand alone middle schools are a hot mess. K-8 schools provide better continuity and outcomes for the MS grade students without any doubt.
SFUSD is extremely top heavy with admin staff doing very little to improve student outcomes but doing lots to line their pockets.
SFUSD will need to reduce school sites for obvious economic reasons BUT first, reduce 555 to a level consistent with other school districts.
Mark,
Last time this happened, Dick Blum swooped in and brokered the sale of $100,000,000 in School Property (Feinstein’s husband – who also sold 6 billion in USPS property) …
Don’t let that happen again.
Take the couple of hundred million Breed is sitting on like a hen on eggs and buy some cut-rate SFUSD property.
Sounds strange.
Can we even do that ?
Go Niners !!
h.
There are too many schools for the number of kids in S.F. who come to SFUSD. We need to advocate for more families to choose SFUSD over $45k per year private schools.
No one wants to be the school that closes but this is what is going to happen. We can’t keep pushing ahead without making changes. Complaining without providing ideas for solutions isn’t going to get people anywhere. If and when the State comes in and takes over, they won’t care about people’s feelings.
“Complaining without providing ideas for solutions” ?
Here are some ideas:
1. Fire Matt Wayne (among many terrible decisions to pour multimillions to hire outside contractors to “fix” the payroll system, he also just hired 2 MORE assistants plus a $300,000 consultant to close schools, go ahead and look at the board docs)
2. Cut Central Office – there doesn’t need to be 27 people working In enrollment, especially when that isn’t a functioning office either.
3. Disclose large settlements that are either to the cost or benefit of SFUSD. Does anyone know how much SFUSD lawsuit against JUUL was settled for? Do we know how much the legal team for this district is bringing in? The district just settled a $4 million dollar lawsuit for a predator sexual abuse case. Maybe unraveling the legal tangles of this district would be a step in the right direction.
Mission,
“Too many schools” ??
You wanna sell the buildings ?
Would you consider selling them to the City for use as Homeless Shelters ?
h.
The slides SFUSD presented to the District Advisory Committee had some misleading interpretations of statistics, such as when they noted K-8 schools did not have a better outcomes than other SF elementary and middle schools. What is astounding is that they are comparing K-8 schools with high rates of poverty against schools that have much lower rates of poverty, and our K-8 schools do just as well. That, Superintendent Matt Wayne, is a feature, not a bug. I would like to see how K-8 schools compare if we look at matched data points, either to compare the median growth in learning longitudinally, or with matched controls.
The District’s slides misreported that K-8 teacher turnover was high, but there has been no turnover at BVHM except for expected retirement or death. The SF schools suffering from turnover are the schools that are understaffed- and the understaffing is a major cause of the turnover. Here’s why:
Schools will have greater turnover when you decrease staffing and increase workload. When a professional teacher suddenly has 50% more students (often with a drop in support staff), they are unable to provide for the basic emotional and educational needs of their students, especially when those students have high needs from learning disabilities, are English language learners, and are living below the poverty line. This causes the teachers a moral injury- as experienced professionals, they know what they should be doing to teach, but are unable to do so.
SFUSD needs to adhere to their own guardrails- keep community input and equity at the center of their decisions. Superintendent Matt Wayne’s proposed budget fails on both counts.
I retired in 2019 just before Covid hit. The School District just can’t get it right, their attempts at improvement only make things worse. Instead of cutting support for schools, students and staff, which will only worsen the current environment, clear out the big thinkers and superfluous positions at headquarters and redistribute that money to where it’s needed. Forget the empire building, better yet so abolish the School Board because it’s only a springboard to City politics. start over …
Gordon,
Spiro Agnew spun a Baltimore School Board position all the way to the Vice Presidency in about 3 years.
Still, our schools certainly need some Oversight.
What do you propose and I don’t say that with a negative tone to you.
What do you propose for Oversight of an organization with 120 schools ?
Maybe, like you have to be a lawyer to be a judge, maybe you should have a Valid Teaching Credential to be on the School Board ?
Anyway, keep the buildings under ownership of parents and their friends.
h.
“Raid” “Comrades” considering how SFUSD has reduced public input systematically over the past 2 years, I feel these words are pretty opinionated when describing parents organized without PAC money, showing up to a public meeting.
There is an overwhelming amount of longitudinal research pointing to the benefits of K-8 schools.
Independent schools, charter schools, and some of the most popular SFUSD schools like Rooftop, AFY and Lawton, are overwhelmingly K-8 for a reason.
Enough of SFUSD business-as-usual. We all know the laundry list of deficiencies.
Maybe it is time for the city to take the district over again. Of course, that is rife with probable issues too.
What other ideas are there? What can we do? It is like watching a sinking ship.
As someone who has worked at K-8 schools AND has a child who attended a SFUSD K-5 and is now in a SFUSD middle school, I can attest to the K-5/6 model being better than the K-8. SFUSD middle schools offer so much more than any SFUSD K-8, and it is helpful to get students into block scheduling, moving within a larger building, making new friendships, etc. that is just not done in K-8 schools.
I would start to ease out language immersion in SFUSD. It’s unnecessary. The district needs to look at what is best for most in the district, versus trying to please. If families want language immersion, there are plenty of private schools that offer this. I would, instead, take the funding and provide more support to ESL students.
As a note for parents who bring their children to these meetings to boo and make comments on their parents’ behalf, you’re not helping the district make better decisions. You’re making unnecessary noise and wasting everyone’s time.
Hi Sally,
Language immersion *is* the best model for language learners. It’s been proved and repoved.
*reproved