Press Release Details
Press Release Message
San Francisco (Friday, September 27, 2024) - The San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) under the direction of new Human Resources leadership is taking immediate steps to identify and mitigate critical, long-standing issues in the Human Resources division.
As part of SFUSD’s transition to a new Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system, staff are reviewing data in the current flawed EMPowerSF system to prepare to move to Frontline, the new system. These reviews have led to the discovery of serious concerns with teacher credentials, which is a symptom of the ongoing challenges related to EMPowerSF and systemic operational issues that have existed for years. The district is remedying these issues, and recognizes the urgency in doing so.
The Credentials Team has reviewed over 7,000 credentials held by district employees. Through this review, SFUSD has identified approximately 350 teachers who may not have an active credential with the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing (CTC). SFUSD began sending letters in early September to teachers who may not have an active credential on file with the CTC to let the employee know of the immediate need to update their credential with CTC or to work with our Credentials Team to apply for a qualifying credential.
“SFUSD cannot allow teachers whose credentials are not in compliance to remain in the classroom,” Superintendent Dr. Matt Wayne said. “We are doing everything possible to support our employees in securing some type of credential or permit for an employee to remain in their assignment.”
The district’s priority is to bring any employee without an active credential into compliance, and to ensure coverage for all classrooms that are impacted. SFUSD has a robust pool of substitutes that can be deployed to schools as needed.
SFUSD is also taking new, proactive steps to prevent this from happening again. Over the past few weeks, SFUSD has also sent reminders to fully credentialed teachers that have a credential that will be expiring in the next few months so that they can renew their credential prior to its expiration. The Department is also working closely with the CTC and the CDE to comply with the California Statewide Assignment Accountability System (CalSAAS) to annually monitor all certificated educator assignments and resolve any identified exceptions. The new ERP system integrates with the CTC and will help ensure this does not happen in the future.
SFUSD is in the process of resolving other long-standing issues that have impacted basic Human Resource functions. For instance, the district is updating its insufficient seniority list and processing data to obtain accurate position control.
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