The San Francisco Unified School District is seeking applicants for an advisory committee that will work with district officials on how to redistribute resources which — in the most severe cases — could include school site closures.
SFUSD faces declining student enrollment amid talks of a strike among teachers and other staff, which would greatly affect district finances. Superintendent Matt Wayne outlined how the district could realign its finances to better serve school communities and students at a Board of Education meeting Tuesday.
“We recognize that in order to improve student outcomes, we must be able to attract and retain qualified and caring educators and staff, provide safe and welcoming learning environments for our students, and deliver programs and services that can help our students be successful and thrive,” Wayne said.
Declining student enrollment leads to less funding for the school district, and officials anticipate that SFUSD could lose 4,600 additional students by 2032. The district also indicated that “additional investments, including salary increases, will not be feasible within the district’s financial means.”
United Educators of San Francisco, the union representing SFUSD’s teachers, is asking for higher pay, more support for special education faculty and transparency around financial management. Both parties have engaged in 18 bargaining sessions and are currently at an impasse.
Ex // Top Stories
The federal government will make it easier to distribute methadone to patients suffering from opioid-use disorder, but California must follow suit before The City can…
A series of recent scandals have featured corrupt, incompetent, or unqualified commission appointees.
The event, which San Francisco has hosted exclusively since 2007, will feature roughly 30,000 attendees and more than 300 exhibitors
Michelle Cody, a math teacher at Willie Brown Middle School, said that the district bargaining team “came tardy, not prepared, (and) showed little movement” at the most recent negotiation.
The union scheduled a strike vote for Sunday that will determine how many of UESF’s 6,000 members would support a strike this academic year. The union’s next in-person bargaining session is Oct. 2.
The advisory committee would ideally advise SFUSD officials on how to move forward with various fiscally-focused measures. This includes advisory on school staffing models, restructuring of districtwide services and programs, leveraging district property — which includes Westfield Mall — prioritizing successful programs, and recommendations on school site mergers and closures.
Applicants may be SFUSD administrators, teachers, labor partners, land use experts, parents or students. In a letter sent to the district community on Tuesday, Superintendent Matt Wayne said the purpose of the committee, which would include 11 community members, is to “deliberate and provide public feedback on resource alignment strategies.”
The deadline to apply is Oct. 10.
