Fight for an Affordable SF
The construction of educator housing is underway and is only one of the key strategies UESF is pursuing to ensure a place in San Francisco for teachers and paras. We must also continue the work of organizing to raise educator wages to meet the growing cost of living, and continue working towards bringing more revenue into our schools either through statewide or local revenue measures.
Finally, UESF has been at the table working to ensure a real affordable housing agenda is implemented in San Francisco. UESF Political Director Ken Tray was instrumental in helping city leaders reach consensus on an inclusionary housing policy just last week. Read more here.
Alliance to Reclaim Schools
The Buena Vista Horace Mann community takes part in a school-wide walk in as part of a national AROS Day of Action.
The Alliance to Reclaim Our Schools (AROS) is an alliance of parent, youth, community, and labor organizations that together represent over 7 million people nationwide. We are fighting to reclaim the promise of public education as our nation’s gateway to a strong democracy and racial and economic justice.
AROS believes that the best way to ensure each and every child has the opportunity to pursue a rich and productive life is through a system of publicly funded, equitable, and democratically controlled public schools. After years of division, AROS is uniting parents, youth, teachers and unions to drive the transformation of public education, shift the public debate and build a national movement for equity and opportunity for all.
More resources and information is also available at http://www.reclaimourschools.org/.
Close the Gap
Parents and educators at a town hall hosted by the Close the Gap coalition.
The Close the Gap Coalition is a broad-based education advocacy group dedicated to ending the opportunity gap in San Francisco public schools. Founded in 2013, the coalition is committed to addressing the causes, effects and solutions to the achievement and opportunity gaps in SFUSD public schools.
The group was founded in 2013 to address issues of inequality and achievement in our schools, especially for low-income students of color, English Language Learners, and students with IEPs.
Participating organizations include:
- Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment
- Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth
- Jobs with Justice San Francisco
- United Educators of San Francisco
Mission Statement
We have established the achievement and opportunity gap as the issue unifying us as a collective body of labor, community organizations and education advocates, and we are committed to together addressing the cause, effect and solutions.
Four Major Principles
- Public education is a public good and a human right
- Public education is central to democracy
- Schools are community institutions vital to the health of our neighborhoods
- Public education cannot be divorced from larger social and economic inequalities
Priority Work
The Close the Gap Coalition has decided to focus our work on three key priority areas:
- Ensuring that SFUSD develops meaningful parent and family engagement opportunities that encourage leadership and partnership, bring parents and guardians into schools, and are grounded in a full-service model. This priority is rooted in our shared belief that parents and guardians should be students’ strongest allies and that family engagement is essential to student success.
- Providing more personalized help in schools – specifically offering an adequate level of staffing of teachers, nurses, counselors and paraprofessionals who have ongoing access to capacity building and professional development opportunities. This also involves using more comprehensive forms of student achievement data beyond the conventional standardized testing in order to more effectively link students to individualized supports and services.
- Ensuring full and reliable resources for our students and their needs. This includes not only advocating for additional resources, but wisely spending those resources – including more staff and support, smaller classes, more services, and better pay for educators.
Want To Get Involved?
For more information about the Close the Gap coalition, contact UESF Treasurer, Geri Almanza, at Treasurer@uesf.org.
California Alliance for Community Schools
United around common struggles and a shared vision, eight California educator union locals joined forces in March of 2017 to establish a groundbreaking new coalition, the California Alliance for Community Schools.
With the strength of more than 50,000 educators behind it, the California Alliance launched this month and aims to help build a movement to fight the Donald Trump/Betsy DeVos agenda to privatize our public schools, and will join organizing efforts with labor and community partners across the state.
Coalition members currently represent the largest cities in the state.
Jobs with Justice – San Francisco
UESF is proud to be a member organization of Jobs with Justice San Francisco, a long-term, strategic alliance of labor, community, faith-based, and student organizations working together to build a strong, progressive movement for economic and social justice locally and nationally.
