Town Hall Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

This question is from a parent at Argonne Elementary School.

SFUSD’s supplemental hiring guidelines for schools is meant to provide clarity on how schools can use site discretionary funds such as PTO/PTA funds to pay for additional staff outside of the number of staff allocated to each school by the district. The main purposes of the guide are to ensure that the district maintains its ability to make decisions about its own budget, operations, and programs (position control in the district) and to ensure that we have a qualified teacher in every classroom.

There are many positions that schools can pay for that are listed in the guide, such as instructional aids, family liaisons, elementary and student advisors, school clerks, community school coordinators, and assistant principals at elementary, middle, and high schools. 

However, because we are in the middle of a national teacher shortage, we are asking everyone to support us by holding off on hiring certificated teachers until SFUSD has the chance to staff all our classrooms. We currently still have 98 classrooms that do not have a teacher in them, and we cannot meet our goals unless our classrooms have teachers.

This question is from a parent at Starr King Elementary School.

We developed the supplemental hiring guidelines to provide clarity on how schools can use their site discretionary funds, including PTO/PTA funds, to pay for additional staff. This includes family liaisons, community school coordinators, student advisors, counselors, social workers, and assistant principals. We are balancing strategically leveraging outside funding while also ensuring that we have a qualified teacher in every classroom across all of our schools.

My child has really benefited from the reading teacher and so have many other students. If we as a district are trying to prioritize reading, why are we not continuing this extremely important role?

This question is from a parent at Lawton Alternative School.

Like many districts, we are impacted by a nationwide teacher shortage. Our priority is to have a highly qualified teacher in every classroom across the district. We have created the supplemental hiring guidelines to ensure school sites do have discretion on how to spend their money. To focus on the options that are allowed, schools can use their discretionary dollars for instructional assistants, student advisors, family liaisons, school clerks, counselors, social workers, nurses, or assistant principals.

In this case, Lawton may want to consider an A-series paraeducator position which supports instruction in core academic subjects.

This question is from a parent at McKinley Elementary School.

We certainly hope that families do not leave SFUSD, especially as we have been seeing enrollment going up and hope to continue that trend. We know that parents care deeply about their child’s education, as do we. We are very grateful for PTA/PTO/PTSA’s hard work and  contributions at your child’s school. 

The supplemental hiring guidelines allow schools to pay for many different categories of additional staff. We acknowledge that for some families, these guidelines feel restrictive. The bigger goal is for SFUSD to hire the qualified teachers desperately needed in every classroom. When we have teachers in every classroom, we will be able to lift all boats together. This is the only way for us to achieve our goals for academic excellence. In the end, we are a united and unified school district, and we have to come together as a community as a whole.

This question is from a parent at SF Public Montessori.

Due to the popularity of the Supplemental Employee Retirement Plan (SERP), we are grateful that we do not need to issue any preliminary layoff notices to teachers across the district. This allows us to preserve consistency across our in-classroom teachers, and we want to thank everyone who took the SERP option to help us accomplish this.

Unfortunately, we still have to issue preliminary layoff notices to counselors, paraeducators, and other positions. We are also working to consolidate our teaching positions so we can ensure that every classroom has a qualified teacher. 

We are committed to our student outcomes. While these cuts are significant, they represent 10% of our budget. We must work together to reimagine how we can use the remaining 90% of our budget to support our students. We will continue to invest in educators’ professional development so there is a high-quality teacher in every classroom so we can support all our students. 

This question is from a parent at Aptos Middle School.

The principals and assistant principals at our schools have big jobs and do amazing work. Most middle and high schools have been allocated assistant principals, and Aptos Middle School should have two assistant principals in their staff allocations.

In addition, all schools, including elementary schools, can use their site discretionary funding for an assistant principal position. Our supplemental hiring guidelines provide clarity on the process to pay for assistant principal positions.

This question is from a parent at Chinese Immersion School at De Avila.

Nurses are absolutely essential staff at our schools. They play a critical role and are essential for our students with specialized health care needs. We are not reducing the number of school district nurses.

We will continue to provide all students who require specialized nursing services with those services at their school site. We are moving to a cohort model to allow for more equitable access and reduce the need to contract out for agency nurses.

Or does the principal have a say in keeping their current staff, even if that person has less seniority?

This question is from an employee at Thurgood Marshall Academic High School.

In general, staff members with more seniority may "bump" another staff member in the same classification with less seniority.

The process of moving staff into different positions is governed by rules established by the California Education Code and through SFUSD’s collective bargaining agreements with our labor partners. The Human Resources department has provided a consolidation guide to all sites, and they will also be hosting informational webinars for site leaders who may have questions about the consolidation process on March 19 and 20.

This question is from a parent at AP Giannini Middle School and Francis Scott Key Elementary School.

We are reorganizing key central office functions as part of our budget reduction strategy. Superintendent Su has asked all central office departments to propose a minimum of 20% reductions in staffing and contracts, with a priority on reducing management and director positions. Every central office certificated administrator received a preliminary notice that they may be released or reassigned for the following school year.

Next month, we will bring a proposal to the SF Board of Education that will include reductions of classified central office administrators. 

Back in early February, the Board allowed the district to release temporary certificated employees on one-year contracts and to release or reassign certificated administrators on probationary status. Later in February, the Board authorized the release of preliminary layoff notices for 395 certificated staff and 164 classified paraeducators. 

In the coming months, SFUSD will request Board approval to issue preliminary layoff notices to 43 central office classified administrators and 86 classified civil servants.

This question is from a parent at Lakeshore Alternative Elementary School.

SFUSD recognizes that teaching combination grade levels will present new ways of planning and delivering the curriculum. We have adopted curricula that are standards based, and teachers can make instructional decisions based on the curricula and the learning needs of their students.

In terms of specific support, we have instructional coaches who will continue to support teachers in differentiating and managing grade-level standards in combination classrooms. There is also robust professional development with specific guidance that will be provided to teachers in combination classrooms.

Question continued: It would be good to see options for the district cuts, including the idea of consolidating schools.

This question is from a parent at Lowell High School and Ruth Asawa School of the Arts.

There are no school closures planned for the 2025-26 school year. 

We are very excited to see an increase in kindergarten and transitional kindergarten (TK) applications. Just this year, we received over 700 TK applications and over 150 kindergarten applications for the 2025-26 school year, which is a move in the right direction. Before we start the closure conversation, we need to make sure we are maximizing our assets to their best uses. In order to find classrooms for over 700 TK students, we have to go into existing schools to see if there are classrooms we can convert. We need to be smart about using our current vacancies.

We also need to make our operations more efficient. This includes putting position controls in place and improving oversight and accountability measures so we are always mindful of how much money we are spending and toward what goals. We also will continue monitoring our enrollment trends. Once we do this, we will have a better handle on our budget and have a clearer understanding on next steps necessary to take if there is a school closure conversation.

This question is from a parent at Aptos Middle School and Dianne Feinstein Elementary School.

The services agreed upon in a student’s Individual Education Plan (IEP) are required by law, and SFUSD must commit to and implement those plans. We have a legal and moral obligation to make sure that students in special education are receiving the support they need to access a Free and Appropriate Public Education (FAPE). We are committed to ensuring that these resources are funded and available to our students with IEPs.

On top of the legal mandates to ensure we are supporting students in special education, we are also reimagining our strategic investments in special education. This means continuing our work to strengthen the continuum of services for special education and investing in early intervention with the youngest children in our schools. For example, our Shoestrings program in the Bayview provides our transitional kindergarten (TK) students with Tier 3 level services so they do not end up in higher-need special education programs later in their academic career. 

This is the kind of innovative investment we need to make as a district so we can serve our students better by providing them with what they need early on and make sure we don’t over identify young people in middle and high school into special education. We are committed to looking at how to reinvest and reimagine special education services and funding.

This question is from a parent at Claire Lilienthal Alternative School.

We will continue to provide those services mandated by law, such as our special education services, which are also our moral obligation.Middle schools and high school students will continue to have counseling programs as we continue to align those counseling services and allocations with contractual agreements and state guidelines.

In San Francisco, we are fortunate to have the voter-supported Public Education Enrichment Fund (PEEF) for our sports, libraries, and arts and music programs. These programs will continue though based on revenue projections from the city and based on school enrollment.

This question is from a parent at Leonard R. Flynn Elementary School.

This program is not being targeted for budget cuts. 

We are committed to providing excellent multilingual programs to each and every student. 

We are working with the District English Learners Advisory Committee (DELAC) on this proposed change. The change is meant to help us meet our legal obligation and to improve student outcomes for Spanish-speaking Latinx students. Most importantly, the 50/50 model will serve each and every student across languages and across backgrounds.

This question is from a parent at Argonne Early Education School.

First and foremost, thank you for choosing SFUSD.

We still have 90% of our budget to ensure that our school district is healthy and that we have the resources necessary to serve each and every student. In this new context, we will provide every classroom with a qualified teacher. We will continue providing our teachers with the professional development they need to be successful so they can implement all the new curricula we are rolling out.

We will have full implementation of our literacy curriculum across our elementary schools. We will be adopting new K-8 math curriculum. We are reorganizing central office so that we are aligning College and Career Readiness with high schools. We are aligning data and research with Curriculum and Instruction. We are making sure our operations make sense and that we are efficient in delivering the services our families and students need. This means providing our teachers with a seamless experience in the district.

This is what it will take for SFUSD to move into the next phase of our work. This is the radical reimagination that needs to happen in partnership with the community. We invite everyone to come together and imagine how that would look like. How is your kindergartener going to experience their first day of school? How will they work through all their literacy and math programs and move on to middle and high school? How will they be successful as a high school graduate of SFUSD?

Specifically, can the Board assure the community that these actions will definitely close the deficit and eliminate the possibility of school closures within the next 2-3 years, or are these measures simply delaying inevitable future closures?

This question is from a parent at Chinese Immersion School at De Avila.

We cannot be where we are now in two years. We need to be in a much better place because we would have implemented our budget stabilization plan, which requires us to take very decisive and painful reductions in our budget. Once our budget has been stabilized, we will have the ability and the autonomy to make our own financial decisions. Before we start conversations about school closures, we need to focus on delivering a balanced budget and making sure that we utilize all of our assets to the best of our abilities. 

We have over 700 new transitional kindergarteners coming into our school district, and we need to find space for those students. If our enrollment continues to increase, we will need to find even more space in the future. We need to be proactive in thinking about how we do this. We also need to make hard decisions around our operations and how to achieve the level of efficiency that our staff, our students, and our families expect from us. We have to do a better job at maximizing our assets, at ensuring that we fulfill our promises, and at having better accountability about the work we do.

We will continue to monitor the enrollment trends, make sure that we are spending within our means, and radically reimagine what we will do with the remaining 90% of our budget. That is how we will achieve our goals of literacy proficiency, math proficiency, and college and career readiness for our students.

This question is from a parent at AP Giannini Middle School and Lowell High School.

After the cut, we still have $1.2 billion in our budget. 5% of this is from the federal government, 70% is from the State of California, and 20% is from the City and County of San Francisco. 

The 70% from the state is based on our enrollment. Over the last few years our expenses steadily increased as we experienced trends of declining enrollment. This created a large gap between our expenditures and our revenue, which is why we have to make this budget cut. Once we complete the budget cut, we will continue to work on keeping our expenditures in line with our revenue.

When that happens, the California Department of Education (CDE) will hopefully lift the sanctions currently imposed on us. It will be very difficult making these reductions, but once we do, we will inspire confidence in our system with our community and provide stability for our staff. More importantly, we will then be able to recruit even more people to come because people will know this is a district that is stable, solvent, and able to manage our resources. When we have stability and predictability for our staff, we can better provide stability and predictability for our students, which is what they need to grow, learn, and thrive.

Once we are at this point, hopefully the external community will also gain the confidence to invest in us and enable us to do the creative and innovative things that San Francisco is known for.

This question is from an employee at Everett Middle School.

First and foremost, SFUSD is a sanctuary district within a sanctuary city. This means that we have the protection of the law from the City and County of San Francisco, which is only one reason why it's so important to have a strong partnership between the city and SFUSD. The Mayor of San Francisco and City Attorney David Chiu are working with us to protect our students and uphold our sanctuary laws.

Public education is the bedrock of this democracy, and San Francisco Unified School District is the bedrock of San Francisco. Given the recent rhetoric at the federal level, we recognize that many people in our community are hurting and scared, and we encourage you to stand strong. For decades, San Francisco public schools have been at the forefront of celebrating diversity and affirming the rights of all students regardless of their identities, backgrounds, or lived experiences. We will continue to implement state laws and SFUSD policies so all our students and staff can learn and grow in a welcoming atmosphere. We will work with the city and the state to ensure that we stay true to these values. We will not waiver.

In addition, the Queer Trans Parent Advisory Council was successfully launched in the fall, empowering families to advocate for our LGBTQ+ community. SFUSD will remain steadfast and laser focused in our work of educating all of our students.