The aftermath of the historic teachers’ strike enables, or forces, the San Francisco Unified School District to return attention to its ever-present and looming challenge of public trust.
From the start of negotiations, school district leaders maintained that they could not afford to fully fund family health care for educators. Critics and skeptics predicted the school district would “find the money” just as it had in many prior-year contract negotiations and budget cycles. The four-day strike ended with what the school district described as its version of “health care for all” and a $183 million price tag. When they vote on approving the settlement at Tuesday night’s meeting, school board members may credit Superintendent Maria Su and her fiscal team with creatively deploying otherwise restricted funds to meet the teachers’ contract demands. To date, however, the school district staff responses to board members’ questions leave many unanswered and unsatisfied.
Under California law, school districts with budget troubles are required to submit to the state documentation, signed by the superintendent and chief budget officer, stating that it can afford proposed contract agreements with its employees. This should be done 10 days before the school board meeting approving the settlement. San Francisco’s AB 1200 certification was not signed until six days before the meeting and was not shared with the public until Friday. Earlier versions of the document had been made public and later corrected in response to the school board commissioner’s questions.
Other apparent inconsistencies remain. In the certification’s first section on page 1, the district is asked about the status of collective bargaining agreements with other employee unions and given the choice of describing those agreements as “settled” or “pending settlement.” The district responded that the agreements are “tentative,” a term that describes the teacher contract, not the administrators’ or other contracts the state asked about.
A more significant inconsistency is how the school district characterized this year’s proposed salary increase for educators. It told the state that there is no increase to the salary schedule this year but, in the Companion Resolution it asks the school board to adopt, it states, “Effective July 1, 2025, all certificated salary schedules will be increased by 2%” and certificated salaries by 4.5%. The signed certification to the state indicating that the contract calls for a “one-time bonus/stipend” is incorrect.
Another major question for the school district relates to the powers that it delegated to Superintendent Su in an emergency resolution on Feb. 2. By its terms, the resolution “remain[s] in effect until repealed by formal Board action” and gives her extraordinary authority not just during the recently ended strike but any serious threat of a “work stoppage, slow down, sick out or stoppage of work. …” As a governance matter, unless it takes the formal action required to repeal the resolution, the board establishes a dangerous precedent and confusion if this or a future superintendent wants to use the authority.
An immediate question is whether the resolution’s promise that “the District will not permit employees to make up days in which they were engaged in strike activities” prohibits teachers from being paid for the extra week of classes the superintendent proposes be made up in June. Leaving aside whether much “instruction” will take place in June after students have graduated, the school district needs to keep schools open to obtain state funding, potentially avoid fines, and meet the state requirement of 180 days of instruction. The district needs the teachers to offer the classes, but disregarding the resolution it passed during the strike against post-strike pay raises questions about what it meant in the first place.
The school district faces three additional challenges in public engagement and trust related to algebra, ethnic studies, and oversight of over $1 billion in bond funding. For over a decade, San Francisco parents, many of whom have since left the public schools, have long clamored for the school district to bring back eighth-grade Algebra for students who are ready and willing to take it. Over 80 percent of San Francisco voters supported Proposition G in 2024 calling for its restoration. Instead of implementing the change right away, the school district has studied the issue, required students to take an additional math class, and placed other obstacles for students that impeded their ability to take calculus in high school and be more competitive for certain college admissions and majors. Now, the school district’s survey that omits the algebra-only option and has other flaws is prompting widespread criticism. A major parent group is conducting its own survey intended to better reflect public will.
On the ethnic studies front, the school district is empaneling a committee to review the new curriculum it approved amidst community concern last summer. Its announcement gave interested stakeholders just three days in which to apply for the committee, which will meet on two Saturday mornings in March at a time that is religiously significant to some members of the community.
Finally, the school district is proposing changes to the composition of the Citizens’ Bond Oversight Committee (CBOC) through a process that compromises CBOC’s ability to independently evaluate how the school district spends over $1 billion in construction funds and to carry out its duties under state law. School district counsel has prohibited the existing CBOC members from any consultative role in appointing their own members. To date, school district staff has provided to the school board and public scant information on the new appointees — not even a resume — potentially infringing on the board’s appointment authority and undermining the credibility and independence of the oversight panel itself.
How the school district communicates with the public and how the school board holds itself and the school district accountable will be evident at Tuesday’s meeting. It will have an impact on public trust and the success of the school district going forward.