Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:01:36] Katie DeBenedetti is a reporter for KQED.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:01:40] They were already having budget issues that were years in the making. This fall, they were planning to propose a list of schools to close. And then this past week, the superintendent ended up resigning. So it’s been rocky, to say the least.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:01:58] I mean, a lot of the problems facing the district right now really stem from this big budget deficit. Can you remind us — how in the hole is San Francisco Unified and how did it get this bad?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:02:12] This year, the district has about a $113 million deficit, which is pretty bad compared to other districts. Its long term or structural deficit is actually much larger. The district is already under pretty strict oversight from this state. Two fiscal advisers have veto power over their financial decisions and have since March. The district says that most of it is because of declining enrollment. Over the past few decades, less students have attended S.F. City schools, but they haven’t reduced staff or school sites and programs accordingly.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:02:56] And less students, I imagine, means less money.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:02:59] Right. So a lot of the funding comes on a per student basis from the state. So when when there’s less students, there’s just less funds.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:03:12] I mean, how much exactly has enrollment been declining at San Francisco public schools? And is it particularly bad compared to other places?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:03:21] Honestly, the district’s kind of just been kicking the can down the road. So the district estimates that they have 14,000 empty seats across its campuses. To put it into perspective, over the last five years, SFUSD’s enrollment has declined about 10%. And statewide, the drop has, you know, been about 9.5%. So it’s not that much worse.
But it’s really been building for years. It hasn’t been adjusting its spending relative to its declining enrollment. San Francisco specifically has less kids. But also with the pandemic, more people moving out of cities. There’s just, you know, less kids in urban areas like San Francisco.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:04:10] One big, very controversial thing that the district has done in the past and was considering again more recently was closing schools. Why was that on the table and how did that go for the district this year?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:04:23] So the declining enrollment problem is really why they’re considering the school closures. The district says it needs to reduce schools to bring the number of classrooms, teachers, guidance counselors in alignment with its new number of students and not be paying for resources for those thousands of empty seats, basically.
The act of closing schools itself isn’t going to save the district a ton of money. But because of the deficit, if they don’t make those cuts and leave the amount of schools open that they have now, they’ll be under-resourced. The last time San Francisco closed schools in 2005 and 2006, a lot of people felt that it wasn’t done equitably. It affected Black communities and schools in the southeast side of the city disproportionately. And there was a lot of trust lost during that process. So people are going in with that in the back of their minds, really. And then throughout the fall, it’s just been a bit of a train wreck. The superintendent, Matt Wayne, was supposed to release the lists of schools in September and then pushed it back just two days before it was scheduled.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:05:45] And then Mayor London Breed got involved, sending a rescue team to the district. There were rumors that the district could delay, you know, the list again, and then it did end up dropping with some errors.
When it came out, there were incorrect scores that the district was using to decide if schools could close or should close, and they had to be corrected. And then there was also communication that was meant to be sent to one school community that was going to be affected, that ended up going to other staff and students. So it really just was confusing and kind of added to the stress and anger that parents had.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:06:33] I mean, how would you describe the reaction at the time, especially from from parents and families?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:06:41] I think most people were pretty frustrated, but also, you know, ready to fight for their schools to stay open.
Meredith Dodson [00:06:49] You know, there’s an initial reaction of shock, concern, anger.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:06:55] So Meredith Dodson is the executive director of the San Francisco Parent Coalition.
Meredith Dodson [00:07:02] You know, a lot of families weren’t even aware that this process was happening.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:07:06] She said that most parents were pretty frustrated by the way that the rollout has gone, but also feeling kind of unsure about, you know, if we don’t go through with this plan, what comes next?
Meredith Dodson [00:07:20] There needs to be a very clearly communicated story about why this makes sense. And we’re just, we just, we don’t have that story yet. And so we’re kind of waiting. You know, parents are waiting to see that from the district.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:07:33] It’s never going to be an easy thing or really well received, I think, when when you’re closing schools. But there was so much focus on, you know, doing it right this time that I think that amplified the anger because they didn’t do it right.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:07:50] And I mean, that said, that’s not the only problem that the district has faced over the last few years. Can you tell me about what else the district has been sort of dealing with outside of the school closure debacle?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:08:04] Yeah. So the last couple of years, the district has had a really big payroll issue. It resulted in a lot of staff getting incorrect paychecks or missing paychecks. It’s come to light this year that the district did not hire about 250 special education workers that are now missing from school sites that need them. And at the start of this year, there were about 100 vacancies that were budgeted for and in some cases filled, but just not onboarded correctly. So there’s been some other organizational issues.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:08:44] I mean, it sounds just totally chaotic. Why, Katie, is it so bad? I mean, some of this is you could, I guess, chalk up to the budget deficit problem, but it also seems like a lot of mismanagement as well.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:09:01] Yeah. And a lot of that has been blamed on the superintendent, Matt Wayne. I think that a lot of people have also said these problems existed in central office before, but a lot of it really comes down to communication and just a sense that the district office is pretty disjointed and not, you know, on the same page.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:09:29] Coming up, the superintendent resigns and what could happen going forward. Stay with us.
So there’s so much going on. And this superintendent or I guess former superintendent Matt Wayne, took a lot of the blame for it all and this weekend, he quit. What happened?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:09:56] Yes. So after the list came out, it was poorly received.
London Breed [00:10:00] There were some major communication issues with our superintendent.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:10:05] Mayor London Breed kind of got involved and came out saying that she had lost confidence in his leadership.
London Breed [00:10:11] The fact is, if we are working on this together and we’re providing that support, we need to all be on the same page.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:10:17] And then pretty quickly, it is announced that he’ll be resigning on Friday night. So the board meets, accepts his resignation, and then board president Matt Alexander announces that they will, you know, hire a new superintendent. Her name’s Maria Su, and they’ll ask her to halt the school closure plan for now.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:10:42] That’s a pretty big deal to have a brand new superintendent with just two months to figure out the budget stuff. I mean, what can you tell me about Maria Sue and what do we know about her?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:10:57] So Maria Sue has been co-leading the mayor’s rescue team that she sent in probably about a month ago now to aid the district with the fiscal problems and the school closure problems. So she’s been familiar with SFUSD at least a little bit for the last month or so. But before that, she has been the executive director of San Francisco’s Department of Children, Youth and their Families. She’s been in that role for 19 years and has worked, you know, with youth and in upper management positions even longer with budgets. You know, she’s familiar with San Francisco and children, but she doesn’t have an education background.
London Breed [00:11:42] Good morning, everyone. I’m San Francisco mayor London Breed, and I am so grateful to be here with so many of the leaders of the city and county of San Francisco.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:11:54] So they had a press conference on Monday morning and it was kind of a who’s who. Mayor London Breed was there. The state superintendent,Tony Thurmond was there. Scott Wiener was there, our state senator. A lot of school board members, a lot of members of the board of supervisors.
London Breed [00:12:14] When you need someone to get the job done, you call people like Maria Su.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:12:20] And there was a real sense of just hope surrounding Maria Su and really stabilizing the district and working together to do so.
Matt Alexander [00:12:29] And that’s what’s been missing at SFUSD. It’s not the educators, it’s the systems that support them. And that is why I am so excited that Maria Su is going to be considered for the next position.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:12:40] Matt Alexander is the board president of San Francisco Unified.
Matt Alexander [00:12:46] You know, our beloved San Francisco Giants finished the season in second to last place, 18 games out. And what did they do? They hired Buster Posey to run the team. That’s what we’re doing with Maria Su. We’re hiring Buster Posey.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:12:59] He also seems pretty confident that she’ll do a great job. He, you know, did touch on the fact that it seemed like in the past, not all of the district staff or maybe the superintendent were super open to support and collaboration. And he felt that she would be.
Maria Su [00:13:24] As a fellow San Franciscan, former SFUSD parent and a lifelong public servant. I understand the profound responsibilities of this role and I am ready.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:13:46] Well, Katie, that’s a lot of big change happening at the district and in key leadership there at this really critical time. What does this mean in the immediate term for parents and students and teachers?
Katie DeBenedetti [00:14:00] So Su said she’s going to focus on the budget first, balancing that by December. But then her other main priority is going to be repairing trust with families. She told reporters that meant going out to school sites, talking with students over snacks, grabbing coffee with parents and teachers, really getting out of the district office and onto school campuses.
Maria Su [00:14:22] These challenges are complex. I wish there was a shortcut to it, but there are not. But I am confident that with the support of everyone behind me, we will get this done.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:14:34] As you just mentioned, Katie, none of this really changes the fact that there is still a budget deficit that needs closing. Besides, you know, the potential of more school closures, do we know anything about how the district plans to do that now? It’s still seems like the million dollar question here.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:14:53] Definitely. We don’t know a lot. But, you know, school closures also aren’t totally off the table. Pretty much every speaker at Monday’s press conference said that there would be tough conversations ahead, alluding to, if not explicitly saying mergers and closures are going to be on the table. And so that’s going to be partly up to the school board after November’s election. There’s been projections that up to 500 positions might be cut, some through layoffs, a lot through attrition. Schools could have to share a nurse or not have a counselor on site every day. The teachers union is also calling for cuts to come from central office staff. So there’s bound to be some tension there, too.
Cassandra Curiel [00:15:40] When there are cuts to schools. Everyone at schools feels that, including the families.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:15:46] Cassandra Curiel is the president of United Educators of San Francisco. San Francisco’s teacher union.
Cassandra Curiel [00:15:53] We’re sensitive to that because cuts to schools does not mean that things that students don’t need or use every day are suddenly gone and no one feels the difference.
Katie DeBenedetti [00:16:04] I think that they’re, you know, feeling cautiously optimistic, hoping that, you know, everything she said about really wanting to engage with them and turning the district around is true, but also going to wait and see what those conversations look like.
Cassandra Curiel [00:16:22] Any cuts to the budget moving forward? We expect a full process, right? We’re very sensitive to that.
Ericka Cruz Guevarra [00:16:34] Well, Katie, how important is it that San Francisco Unified figure out its budget problems?
