Greetings UESF members. You all do such amazing work each and every day. On top of evaluating the performance and needs of your students as you prepare for connecting with families during parent conference week, you also hold space for the entire community when we experience impacting events like the recent elections. Make sure to be kind to yourself and enjoy the long weekend because you also need the space to heal and recover. Know that the ultimate power for social change is strong communities like the one we have built in our union. Election results do not change the direction of our union, and our goal remains the same: “In order to achieve the schools our students deserve we will build union power and strengthen authentic solidarity by developing leaders.”
We strengthened our union’s muscle through this year’s political campaign, which directly impacted the growing power of our big bargaining team and the “we can’t wait campaign.” We will get through this period together because we are organizing for the schools we and our students deserve. Our work goes beyond simply voting, and we will continue to defend our values.
Aside from offering thoughts on the elections, I want to take the time in today’s weekly communication to raise the alarm on the District’s budget for the 2025-2026 school year. Next Tuesday, November 13th the BOE will hear from UESF’s leadership about our concerns regarding a lot of the misinformation coming out of SFUSD’s central office. UESF will set the record straight, the District has money and they should be spending today’s dollars on today’s needs. According to their own analysis, the District had a surplus of $130 million from the 2023-2024 school year. They also spent an additional $60 million on a “stabilization agreement,” bringing their total for this nebulous “stabilization agreement,” to an astronomical $106 million. For context, last year, the District eliminated 900 certificated positions from their budget which amounted to $54 million. This is all in addition to the tens of millions spent on Empower.
This explosion of monies going to outside contractors is unacceptable and irresponsible. I want to be very clear, the scale of resources this District is investing in contractors represents the scale of incompetence. Poor planning and coordination of various departments has meant that Executive Directors and Directors are simply contracting out tens of millions of dollars in services as a reaction to not having a clue about what the needs are at school sites. The ongoing mismanagement and turnover at the highest levels of the District cannot be an excuse to have school communities further destabilized year after year.
To make matters worse, this same budget report showed the set aside of almost $84 million in reserves. Again, these reserves become a “cookie jar” for the Central Office to fund unaccountable programs and services that ultimately don’t prioritize school sites. We are being very transparent and direct with you, our members because the amount of misinformation coming from the Central Office is alarming. As the new Superintendent is still settling into her position, we want to send a clear message that the union will continue to be relentless in demanding that they prioritize school sites and spend today’s dollars on today’s needs. Every single school site community, from the principals to support staff to the educators in the classroom must be prepared to fight to guarantee stable schools.
UESF will be making it clear at next Tuesday’s Board of Education meeting that cuts are to be kept away from the classroom. No cuts should be made to Special Education and the funding for Assistant Principals, nurses, social workers and counselors should be prioritized. If the District must present cuts to the State of California, it should start with the positions of unrepresented management responsible for the ongoing failures. Please tune in to Tuesday’s meeting and be on the lookout for further communication about organizing at your school sites in preparation for the Board of Education meeting in December where they will vote on next year’s budget.
As your school community depends on you, you can depend on your union and together we will fight and win the schools our students deserve.
