San Francisco public school teachers could be on strike as early as next week after negotiations between their union and the school district have stalled.
It would be the first teachers strike in the city in 47 years.
Union officials said the likelihood of such a strike is high, saying they and the district are too far apart on pay raises, healthcare for dependents, and various proposals for students, including inserting “sanctuary” district policies in a union contract.
Teachers have already started to approve a strike: More than 99 percent of almost 2,400 union members voted to authorize their union to call a strike in early December, the first of two votes required for a walkout. The second vote is set to wrap up by Wednesday, and the union said about 4,700 members had cast ballots.
That level of participation, they said, is “historic,” and the outcome of the vote is not in doubt.
“We’re anticipating folks are voting ‘yes,’” said Cassondra Curiel, the teachers union president, in reference to the proposed strike. “Our members feel very strongly that they’ve been disrespected by this district. The district continues to reject our highest priorities.”
Superintendent Maria Su disagreed. She announced in a district-wide email to families and staff on Friday that the district had failed to reach an agreement with the union following a fact-finding session that day.
She said the union had rejected a three-year “stability package” that included fully funding family health benefits, a six percent raise over three years, and proposals addressing special education staffing and workload.
But union leaders say that proposal came at the cost of their benefits. The union’s bargaining presentation from September says the district proposed eliminating some contract stipulations, including class size limits.
“We are living in different realities,” Frank Lara, the union vice president, said on Monday.
Any strike could not occur until after an independent “fact-finding” process required under state law. That process is expected to result in a report released on or around Feb. 4, according to Curiel.
Union leadership is seeking raises of over nine percent for certified teachers, and 14 percent for paraeducators over two years, which they said is aimed at closing the gap between their compensation and the high cost of living in San Francisco. The union rejected the school district’s counter offer of a two percent raise over three years.
Union members also want a new special-education-staffing model aimed at reducing case loads and teacher turnover. They want contract language protecting undocumented students and mixed-status households, and expanding homeless shelters in schools like the one that was located inside a Mission District K-8 for years.
Budget proposals shared with Mission Local indicate that the school district has considered significant cuts to plug a $113 million deficit. Lara, for his part, disputed that the district is experiencing a budget shortfall, calling the district’s projections “educated guesses.”
“They’re sitting on hundreds of millions of reserves,” said Curiel. “Just this December, they moved over $100 million into an extra savings account.” Both Lara and Curiel said the district has a history of “over-projecting expenditures while under-projecting revenues.”
Mary Lavalais, a paraeducator at San Francisco Community School in the Excelsior, said she voted ‘yes’ on the strike due to the district’s rejection of the union’s proposals.
“They have a lot of money, rainy-day-fund money. It’s storming and they need to use it,” she said, referring to the school district. “If you have money and you’re firing people, getting rid of paraeducators who are delivering direct services to the children, that’s very immoral.”
“We’re constantly told to do more with less,” said a special-education teacher who asked to remain anonymous. He said the district treats paraeducators as expendable “non-classroom” costs, while he sees them as essential to student learning and safety.
Though he supports the union, he worries that prolonged uncertainty — or a strike followed by layoffs, program cuts or school closures — would fall hardest on the most vulnerable students and families. “I see no end in sight, and I really worry about the breaking point.”
In response to emailed questions from Mission Local about the union’s claims, the school district referred to Su’s Friday email and a video message to families, in which she said that the district “will not be able to open schools to students safely” if the union decides to strike after the fact-finding process.
“I am very much committed to meeting our legal obligations to providing 180 days of school for our students,” she said. “If necessary, we may extend the school year to ensure that that requirement is met.”
pay teachers, not the bottomless homeless nonprofit sinkhole!
Amen!!!
It’s really important you get the numbers right:
-6% raise over 3 years (2% each year for next 3 years) is more accurate, true. Still less than COLA
-Identifying a fiscal pathway for the District to FULLY FUND family health benefits – nice idea on paper no guarantee
In exchange for:
-Losing dept chair preps, AP funding and sabbaticals.
-larger class sizes.
So essentially getting paid less to do more work. That’s the rub
Maybe check with the parents about having homeless shelters in schools
FYI there is a school homeless shelter, at Horace Man Middle school, at 23 between Valencia and Mission. It was one of the 1st in the country.
Do you mean the parents of the homeless kids who would live in the shelters as a family? Or do you mean the parents who have homes where they can pontificate about who should be excluded from shelter?
As Lizzo would say:”Bought Damn Time.” They went on a strike UESF has not had the courage to go on strike since 1979, due to weak union leadership. More and more work, is being piled on both administrators and teachers, with no compensation.Both groups get the experience with SFUSD and leave to go to San Mateo and beyond, where they are not only paid better, but respected.
More than half the students in SFUSD are below grade level math proficiency; and barely more than half are grade level proficient in reading. Meanwhile, those in charge of instruction demand more money.
A bunch of SF billionaires own multiple homes in the city, several on the peninsula, private islands, New York penthouses, “vacation” homes worldwide, and control the media, but they can’t handle a bump in their taxes.
It’s a profoundly unjust world we live in, so yeah blame teachers who need more support to teach kids who are multi-language learners, homeless, refugees, terrified by ICE, hungry, don’t have parents who know how to navigate an extremely difficult system to advocate for their children, and have to contend with a society of bigots (like you) – among other things.
All you’ve done is shown that it’s easier for you to baselessly call someone a bigot than it is to make a fact based argument. Try again. This time use facts to explain how half the kids being unable to read or do math at grade level means we should raise teacher pay while the teachers give exactly zero additional benefits in return.
Not only that, but SFUSD is running a huge fiscal deficit. We should be laying off teachers not paying them more.
It would be against my own best interests to share my opinion on this matter.