Welcome back to all you amazing educators who returned to school sites and work areas this week! While you have been getting ready to welcome our students back, your union has been out distributing welcome packets, UBC Manuals, and T-shirts. We’ve also been hitting the ground running to elect Board of Education candidates who are as committed as UESF members are to the schools our students deserve.
Our collective power forced SFUSD to prioritize stability for our students, educators, and families. All the hard-fought wins over the last few years are the necessary cornerstones that will continue to build the public school system San Francisco deserves. The contract is the most powerful tool available to deepen our work site stability and ensure quality education. With its clear guidelines, we can educate each other on our rights and responsibilities, train administrators and supervisors on best practices, and build the trust needed for collaboration. I encourage all members to really get to know the contract and work with your UBC to enforce it.
The strike of 2026 was the culmination of years of our collective efforts to transform our union. To continue supporting educator leaders in fighting for and defending just contracts at school sites, UESF staff will now support Regions with BOTH representation and organizing. You will continue to have Officers assigned to your region, and UBCs can reach out to schedule visits anytime.
I want to emphasize today how important our fight is to elect pro-public-school allies to the Board of Education. UESF has endorsed a slate of three candidates: Reina Tello, Virginia Cheung, and Ryan Hazelton. The entire SF labor community is committed to electing new leadership on the Board of Education that can hold SFUSD management accountable, invest in students and educators, stop austerity initiatives and poorly planned school closures, and finally fix the broken enrollment system.
The current Board of Education led the District through the entire 11 months of negotiations that ultimately led UESF members to decide to strike. Not only did the strike win members wage increases, dependent health care coverage, and more with the overwhelming support of San Francisco families and citizens, but it did so without their threatened financial crisis. In fact, the District reported to the state that it is sitting on over $200 million extra dollars heading into this coming school year. This practice aligns with a pattern of austerity supported by anti-public school, anti-union, and privatizing organizations backed by billionaires. You and I will not allow this to continue. That is why this Board of Education election is so important for every UESF member and our communities.
Reach out to your Union Building Committee at your worksite or to politics@uesf.org to get involved in the campaign. Anyone can volunteer directly right now. And it’s more important than ever to take our local politics seriously, because in this case we get to elect our own bosses.
This school year, connect with your UBC site leaders regularly, familiarize yourself with the contract, and stay in the know with our weekly Friday Newsletter. We will be opening our union store in September with some new items that I think you will all be excited to wear every Wednesday to rep our union! I can’t wait to see y’all and those new union fits out in the streets. Have a great first day with students, and here’s to another powerful year.
