Welcome back UESF! UBCs started this Spring Semester hella strong, when this past Wednesday over 100 site leaders representing 106 school sites and work areas came together to prepare for the second strike vote. UESF’s second strike vote is the last vote that UESF members cast to authorize the union leadership to call for a strike. The last time UESF held a second strike vote was in 2006, and the last time educators in San Francisco were forced to strike was in 1979.
The seriousness with which your site leaders showed up on Wednesday gives us confidence that the demands your Big Bargaining Team are holding firm on are just and unifying. The same evening that UBC leaders were being trained, your elected Executive Board voted overwhelmingly to motivate a YES vote. UESF leaders at every level are all aligned to win our demands and show the district that we will stand firm against their mismanagement and disruption.
Our strength and unity comes at the same time that the district released school site budgets that intend to divide our city and destabilize our schools. Their proposed site budgets, which came from the plan unanimously rejected by the elected school board in December, promotes instability by offering no real future or vision, only cuts. School sites with space currently seem to have their enrollment capped, which then causes a projected “underenrollment”, and that manufactured under enrollment directly contradicts the fact that families continue demanding more and better programming, fully staffed schools, a robust Early Ed program, and the expansion, not the closure, of SFUSD classrooms.
We should be absolutely clear that while this district leadership claims that they’re only objective is to balance a budget, they seem to have already prioritized investing public-school dollars into savings accounts instead of into the schools where students sit. Today’s public school dollars should be used for today’s public school students. We all want to see better quality, public education, not large reserves set aside in district coffers for more contractors, failed payroll systems, or the next AI programs for teaching kids, or whatever they come up with next. For almost 50 years, SFUSD has had the motivation to finish negotiations and come to an agreement with UESF without a strike looming.
The last strike vote will be held at your school site or work area and will run from January 21st to the 28th. At this moment, the choice is clear, will you agree with a District leadership that seeks to place over 10 times the required amount in reserves.. and the same leadership that sought to increase their own pay by 13% in Fall while claiming there is no money, or will we stand together to ensure that the priority is spending today’s dollars on today’s students?
The choice is very clear.
We are ready and will stand together on the picket lines. Because we lean on each other for support everyday. This is the moment when our collective power is necessary to inspire each other, our students, our families, and our city to fight against austerity and for the schools we deserve.
So let us make 2026 a year to remember. Get ready UESF. I’ll see you on the lines.
