SF School Staffing Cuts Leave Counselors, Social Workers on the Chopping Block

After an unpopular campus closure plan was put on ice last fall, San Francisco’s public schools chief is poised to issue an only slightly less controversial cost-cutting demand — layoffs.

Superintendent Maria Su presented a sparse base staffing model for school sites at Tuesday night’s Board of Education meeting, telling commissioners it was first and foremost aimed at “keeping the lights on” amid a huge budget shortfall for the San Francisco Unified School District.

“We are, at this moment in time, facing a very large deficit,” she said, noting that the $113 million gap that must be closed “represents 10% of our budget, and it requires us to make really difficult decisions.”

The staffing model allocates funding for state-required positions, which include principals, clerks, classroom teachers and a few auxiliary roles — but even just covering those expenses puts the district almost $58 million over budget, state adviser Elliott Duchon said. That would require SFUSD to dip into funds that are supposed to be targeted toward low-income and foster youth.

It’s not clear exactly how many positions will be funded at each school, but in January, Su said about 535 staffers would need to be cut since personnel makes up the “bulk” of the district’s ongoing costs.

“We are going to put in front of you in a few short months a list of people that are our colleagues, our friends, our neighbors, our kid’s favorite teacher,” Su told the board in January. “It is going to be awful.”

Supplemental roles, like counselors, social workers and assistant principals, won’t be a given. Whether schools can pay for those positions will depend on how statewide, restricted and grant funding shake out in the spring — much to the ire of parents, staff and board commissioners.

“What we say as a district is sufficient for our students in our schools may just be different than what the state defines as a base allocation,” Board President Phil Kim shot back after Duchon, who has veto power over district spending, said staffing expectations might need to change.

“The hard part about this is you are used to a lot of resources at your schools,” Duchon told the board. “Social workers are wonderful, but they are not generally part of the school allocation.”

The staffing cuts will affect both the district’s central office and school sites, though officials have not specified how they will be split.

In the central office, Su has classified departments under two umbrellas: districtwide school supports and operations. Each department head has been instructed to make recommendations to cut anywhere from 20% to 100% of their budgets.

So far, the central office has committed to cutting $20 million in unrestricted funds, while other positions and services will likely be cut when restricted dollars are distributed.

“There are certain programs or initiatives within central office and within divisions that we’re asking folks to completely eliminate because we do not have the luxury of dollars to do it,” Su told the board on Tuesday night.

The other positions will be cut from school sites. Layoff notices have to go out by mid-March and will primarily affect staff who are not in the state’s definition of “base” funding. Parents and educators say many of these roles deemed “supplemental” are essential for their children.

SFUSD isn’t planning to eliminate all social work positions or the other supplemental roles that parents say are needs, not wants. However, Su said any of the funding for such educators is going to have to come out of the district’s restricted money, which has stricter use parameters and is more variable since the state and federal governments allocate some. Duchon noted that the district won’t know exactly how much is available until Gov. Gavin Newsom’s budget revision in May.

More precise numbers for layoffs also depend on how many veteran educators take a buyout SFUSD offered in December. It would be reversed if at least 314 didn’t take the deal.

Site staffing models haven’t been presented publicly, but school principals and leaders have gotten drafts, according to Cassondra Curiel, president of United Educators of San Francisco.

That roll-out hasn’t gone smoothly. While some schools found out they might lose staff and be forced to combine more classes, Curiel said administrators have not been able to get answers to clarifying questions nor sustain much communication with the central office at all.

“While we didn’t always agree with [former Superintendent Matt] Wayne, at least he communicated with us,” she told KQED last week.

Su did not respond to a request for comment on Wednesday, but she acknowledged last month that she did not meet the district’s expectation to have “deep conversations” with labor partners related to significant decisions like the staffing model.

UESF has also joined a statewide union bargaining effort calling for fully staffed schools. It delivered a petition with its demands and more than 3,000 signatures to the board on Tuesday night.

The union noted that some classroom teachers would likely get pink slips since senior educators who have moved to support roles targeted for layoff, like English learning specialists, would have the option to go back to the classroom, bumping a newer employee.

Parents and students also pushed back against the sparse staffing plan.

“What happens when dedicated social workers like Ms. Carrie Tanabi at McKinley Elementary are potentially eliminated? The plan, as it is presented to us, does not seem to keep the lights on. It keeps it dim for our children’s future,” parent Rasheq Zarif said at Tuesday’s meeting.

“Why are school counselors — who constantly support students in their success goals, whether it is to advance, catch up or be on track — classified under pending available funding?” student board delegate Yzabel Lam said.

Duchon, the state adviser assigned to SFUSD, said that as enrollment decreases, realigning staffing levels is a prerequisite for getting the district out of a year-over-year budget hole, which would balloon to $127 million by 2027 if no changes are made.

“Until you do that, you will really not have and be able to utilize the resources that are available to you from a very generous city,” he told board members at the January meeting. The district is under a hiring freeze enforced by the state, which won’t be reversed until it stops overspending.

As district staff turns to evaluate what restricted funding sources could be used to pay for supplemental positions and programs, unprecedented expenses like the Los Angeles wildfires and federal changes since Newsom’s January budget proposal could affect public school spending by the state.

There are also new questions around federal dollars under the Trump administration, which has promised to cut funding to schools that support transgender students and suggested drastic cuts to the Department of Education. SFUSD relies on around $50 million per year from the federal government for special education and supplemental academic resources.

“If we have to make additional cuts … because of certain policies that’s happening at the federal level, I don’t even know how we can sustain that,” Su told the board. “It would devastate this district.”