At the end of February, the San Francisco Unified School District told some San Francisco K-8 schools that they could expect staffing cuts. Parents and teachers, fearing the district was phasing out the K-8 model, immediately launched an advocacy effort, with around 100 of them showing up at two school district meetings to make impassioned pleas.
Just as they were anxiously anticipating the worst news on March 22, when school budgets were due, they instead discovered that three of the four K-8s they advocated for dodged some or all of the proposed cuts.
San Francisco Community School, a K-8 in the Excelsior, was going to lose its only middle-school physical education teacher and a campus security position for the coming school year. Days after advocates participated in their second school district meeting on March 13, the district let them know that both positions would come back, according to Maia Piccagli, president of the school’s Parent Action Council.
She wasn’t quite sure exactly why, but thought it had something to do with their advocacy. “I felt amazing, I felt really excited. Honestly, I’ve done a lot of advocacy in my life, but I have rarely seen an immediate change,” she said. “It felt great to have had so many parents involved in making statements and having there be such a quick win afterwards.”
“We are happy to hear that SFUSD leadership is receiving and applying feedback,” said Frank Lara, executive vice president of United Educators of San Francisco, in a statement.
The school district, while emphasizing it is “committed to a transparent process for school staffing and budget allocation,” did not specify how the decision had been made.
SoMa’s Bessie Carmichael School PreK-8 Filipino Education Center also got what its parents and teachers advocated for: The reinstatement of one of the school’s two social workers, who the school district was going to cut. The good news came last Thursday morning — less than two days after the school board meeting, according to the school community.
Buena Vista Horace Mann K-8 Community School’s parents and teachers advocated for seven teaching positions the district had put on the block.
The community learned early last week that the school district would reinstate two of their campus security positions, according to principal Claudia Delarios-Moran, who remains uncertain of the reason. These are necessary positions for the school, parents and teachers said, which the school had planned to hire at its own expense in the coming school year.
While the school district declined to add back the seven teaching positions, the money Buena Vista Horace Man will be able to save from spending on two campus security positions will be used to hire an extra teacher, reducing the casualties from seven to six. The school plans to hire a teacher to help with its fourth and fifth grades with the $157,000 saved, according to Delarios-Moran.
“I feel relieved, because it allows us to cut one less position,” said Delarios-Moran. “It gets us closer to where we were before in the first place.”
Twin Peaks’ Rooftop School TK-8 was not as fortunate. The school district informed the school in early March that it would lose one of its kindergarten positions. The school community made comments at the March 4 district advisory meeting; they made another comment on Zoom at the following week’s school board meeting.
The position was not reinstated.
“They did not give us our kindergarten class back,” Rooftop Principal Darren Kawaii said last Friday. Kawaii also said he did not know how such decisions were made.
They might “get it back” the year after, he said, “but it’s not confirmed.”
Parents and teachers want assurances that “we will definitely get our kindergarten [teacher] back next year,” Kawaii added, but the district “won’t put it in writing whether it’s happening or not.”
The school district will start discussing school consolidation and closures this Thursday at a virtual town hall. At present, there are eight K-8 schools in San Francisco.
san francisco continually loses it’s families because it has become a techie haven for the wealthy.
Ed Lee sold out the city to bring technology companies to market street while the surrounding community failed to benefit.
Millions of dollars from tech entrepreneurs manipulate our elections.
Imagine how many teachers and staff could be hired in our schools with all that money spent on a political campaign to reinforce a police state.
For all his pathetic musings, Sanctimonious Ron is correct about how these technology companies and their wealth wield unearned power in public policy.
I’d like to note that Rooftop was present in person at this meeting. One of our members submitted a speaker card, per protocol, but it was removed from queue due to time constraints.
Can the reporter explain this part regarding BVHM’s planning around their security staff: “…the school had planned to hire at its own expense in the coming school year.” What does it mean “its own expense” exactly? I understand schools can use PTA funds to hire additional staff. How many schools will be doing this across San Francisco due to these new budget cuts? We all know many SFUSD schools have a higher percentage of wealthy families — I’m curious to know if those schools already have been or will be planning on hiring more staff with their PTA funds due to budget cuts. This could be a huge equity issue across the city if not kept in check. I don’t think many people know that this allowed and how many schools do it.
Rooftop is losing a Kindergarten teacher. This is a school with 60ish kids per grade, which means three classes per grade for K-3 and two classes per grade for 4-8. Eliminating a K teacher throws the entire system into havoc, and this is a school that is in demand. K-8 schools create wonderfully supportive communities that nurture the families who choose them and SFUSD continually fails to recognize this and adequately support them.
This is a perfect example of a cut that gives the district small savings, but causes a huge amount of damage. I hope SFUSD will reconsider and look at making cuts to the central office instead.
I’d bet Clarendon and Rooftop would never have cuts proposed.
Rooftop has a kindergarten classroom being cut.
what about harvey milk civil rights academy?