San Francisco Unified School District’s proposed budget cuts of approximately $102 million will disproportionately hit students with higher needs, according to a Mission Local analysis.
At present, cuts to staff are aimed at secondary schools with low enrollment numbers, primarily those with less than 600 students. The majority of students in all but two of these schools come from low-income families.
The district’s 36 secondary schools include high schools, middle schools and K-8 schools. Only 19 of the 36 have fewer than 600 students, making the 19 targets of the proposed cuts. The majority of students at all but two of the 19 come from low-income families.
If the district moves forward with the proposed staffing cuts, all will lose an assistant principal and/or security staff. Two of the majority low-income schools may also lose a school counselor.
Each of the 17 small secondary schools serving low-income students also have a high number of students who are not only economically disadvantaged, but are also learning English as a second language or have a recognized disability.
At San Francisco International High School, nearly 99 percent of the student body shares this profile.
The high school will lose its assistant principal, along with one security officer, if the district’s proposed staffing cuts go into effect next year.
The proposed cuts aimed at small schools treat all schools alike — a sharp change from the district’s longtime equity-based funding system. Since 2012, the system has provided additional funding for high-need schools and allocated funding for staff based on student need.
The district did not respond to questions as to whether it plans to set aside additional funding for high-need schools or why it has abandoned an equity-based staffing model.
In a statement, spokesperson Laura Dudnick said the district will continue meeting with site leaders, parents and community groups before the budget is finalized.
“Both educational research and ethical responsibility to students suggest that there should be higher allocations for students who need more resources,” said Matt Alexander, a member of the San Francisco School Board who expressed concerns about the district’s proposed staffing plan before it was shared with administrators in January.
“How does this new staffing model do that? I just don’t know.”
Alexander said that the district’s superintendent, Maria Su, said the district would meet one-on-one with school principals in the coming months to discuss each school’s needs.
The school board has rejected the budget on the grounds that the staffing model is inadequate and “discriminatory,” but the district has said that its staffing decisions are at the discretion of the district, and will not need the board’s approval.
The district’s methodology states that cuts in assistant principals, counselors, and security aides are based on enrollment and “safety concern data.”
There is no enrollment minimum provided for the schools that will lose a security guard or counselor, though the district’s budget states that staffing will be based on enrollment.
The district has experienced a steep decline in enrollment in San Francisco public schools over the last decade, and projects a loss of an additional 4,600 students by 2032, citing declining birth rates as well as other factors, including shifts to the private school system.
A middle school principal who would lose an assistant principal, as well as security aides, under the current proposal, said staffing based on enrollment alone just “does not work.”
All schools, she said, need an assistant principal.
“It doesn’t matter the school size; the number of tasks don’t change,” she said.
Between breaking up school fights, coordinating teachers and substitutes across the school, adhering to district mandates, and supporting overworked teachers and staff, even with an assistant principal, it can feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day, she said.
“San Francisco Unified School District’s proposed budget cuts of approximately $102 million will disproportionately hit students with higher needs”
Well of course. Because those children cause a disproportionate amount of work, effort and cost. You can only make cuts in areas where a lot of money is spent!
That said isn’t the real problem here that they are trying to save money without closing any schools. It would be better to close the worst-performing schools and leave the rest fully staffed.
This.
As hard as it may be to do, SFUSD has too many partially filled schools. Our inability to close them has consequences.
SFUSD has never adequately committed to equity, but apparently that hasn’t been enough. With tRump’s attacks on DEI, the district see the greenlight to slash what they were never keen on.
Are we going to be made to vote to “Save SFUSD” again?
Why can’t elected officials put these state agencies, SFUSD and CCSF and even BART on an even keel or come to the voters and supervisors, explaining what the structural impediments are to running the agencies, so that we can pull back on the stick to end the state of permanent crisis in basically everything?
If we think matters are bad now, if US imperial decline continues and the rest of the world backs slowly away from the cray cray economically, then it is only going to get worse. Add in potential ICE enforcement against agricultural workers and that is an existential threat to California.
Education, transportation, nutrition are vulnerable to failure, are we missing anything? I don’t know if the single party Democrat state caused this, but we do know that the Democrats don’t seem to see this as a problem and have no idea on plans to change any of it.
It’s napkin math. We have too many schools and not enough students to fill them. It’s painful, but we beed to close some schools.
We do need some schools to be closed, as there are far too many zombie schools. Or the state takeover still be worse.
The state considers minimum staging to be principal, primary teachers, front office assistant and janitor. No para, not librarian, not social worker, no arts.
That’s what are trying to avoid. It’s like to see solutions, rather than ‘don’t change anything’