CONVERSATION
At a time when San Francisco’s public schools are facing immense challenges — including a return to full-time classroom learning in the fall — the teachers’ union, the United Educators of San Francisco, or UESF, is also seeing major turnover. It starts at the top: Cassondra Curiel, a 36-year-old teacher at Visitacion Valley Middle School, begins her first term as union president on July 1.
Curiel, a Los Angeles native who has taught in the district for 11 years, is taking the reins along with a slate of other candidates who swept the top spots.
If the district makes good on a full return, SFUSD teachers will be coming back to class with many students still unvaccinated, a looming budget deficit, and a Board of Education under heavy political fire. Three board members elected in 2019 could face a recall this year, and some residents want the mayor to appoint board members. Teachers will also be working with students who have fallen behind academically or socially, or who might have experienced family trauma, hunger, or displacement.
Before her election, Curiel had filled several union roles, including three years on the executive board. A week before starting her term, she spoke with The Frisc about the long school closure, public reaction, and the difficulties of the coming year.
This conversation has been edited and condensed.
The Frisc: How is your term as president likely to be different from that of the previous leader, Susan Solomon?
Cassondra Curiel: The environment that we’re walking into is different, but the reality of our situation on the ground is that every year feels like this. The pandemic has exacerbated a lot of the inequities that so many of us have already seen, when families suddenly become unhoused and are having food insecurity. We were already trying to plug holes for many years. What the pandemic did was blow it wide open for perhaps a larger subset of our city, or folks who maybe weren’t paying attention. So now there is more attention. We’re talking about basic needs here.
What should parents and teachers expect from the union in the coming year?
Folks should see an increase in organizing. [There will be] lots of conversations around what is happening in each school community, conversations with families. So many times, decisions are made in a hierarchical way, when the people most affected by those decisions are in the classroom and the people who pick kids up from school.
We believe not enough of the decisions, not enough of the push that we’ve seen at higher levels has been informed by a broad body of people.
When students and families have criticism and suggestions, it’s an awful lot of voices, and that can’t all happen during public comment at a Board of Education meeting. So how can we make room for all of that to make sure public education is accessible and equitable for all people?
The district has pledged to resume full-time in-person teaching this fall, but the final contract with teachers is still being hashed out. Are teachers also committed to full-time in-person classes?
No one wants to be back in the classroom more than educators at this point. We want our students back.
There is a commitment to complete bargaining ASAP for the return to school. That is super important, so that it gives the membership a month or hopefully six weeks to prepare, and also for the school district to prepare the buildings.
There’s a lot of concern about kids coming back having experienced learning loss or trauma, such as hunger or the loss of a home or a family member. Are teachers prepared?
We have been harping on continual requests for social and emotional supports. We need counselors in every school. We need social workers. So many students have lost family members. Some of them were evicted, or perhaps threatened and had to leave their living space, and have never gone to school unhoused before.
What are other key issues to resolve?
This is not necessarily pandemic-related, but the state of our buildings. We’re talking about how many students are in a room according to the guidelines and ventilation. Even pre-pandemic, [smoke from] yearly fires was shutting down schools. So that’s not necessarily holding up bargaining, but it is a major issue.
When UESF negotiated with SFUSD to bring high schoolers back, we were urging SFUSD to invest the influx of state money into southeast side schools’ ventilation, because that is the majority of the schools that don’t have an enclosed HVAC system.
The district, school board, and union have all come in for criticism for delays getting kids back into classrooms. Should the union have done anything different?
What we could have done differently hasn’t been a focus, because our main job is to represent our members. Representing our members means taking care of what they care about. And that is our students.
There are things outside of our bargaining control. A lot of this rhetoric around us keeping schools closed, we have no right to do that. We never did. That choice was made by leaders in the school district.
How do you respond to those who blame the union for problems in the district?
The way that we heard it was, “We don’t dislike teachers, we just dislike the union.”
Well, educators have unions for a reason. We have the ability to fight for things that other folks don’t. Being pro-public education means being pro-educator; it means being pro-union; it means being in solidarity with the working class, which is in fact the majority of those enrolled in many public schools, especially urban districts.
Also, many SFUSD parents and families are educators themselves. When the conflict gets narrowed down to families vs. teachers, it removes the reality that for some families, educators have been the only way that they’ve been able to navigate the system.
How is teacher morale?
Folks are tired, but they’re ready to go. But we need to know what we’re doing, and to extend negotiation any further or continue waiting leaves us in limbo land.
We knew in January about a drop in SFUSD enrollment from 2019 to 2020. It’s grown worse over the pandemic, and it could decline even more come August. An SF Chronicle editorial argued that this reflects a loss of “faith” in public schools. Your response highlighted the complexities of enrollment changes, noting that schools across California and the country are seeing declines. Can you elaborate on that response?
If it’s a conversation around SFUSD’s enrollment being related to a loss of confidence, then that is a very narrow and limited perspective. When you extrapolate that data to what’s happening in San Francisco, this is a conversation around displacement or being priced out.
On a much larger scale, we’re talking about the entire state of California, we’re talking about moving patterns. And the [position] the Chronicle had is that public schools are failing, people are leaving them. Well, where do you think they’re going? The assumption is “Oh, they’re putting them in charter, they’re putting them in private schools.” And the data does not prove that.
This is not a San Francisco thing. This is not about our school board.
But has there been a loss of confidence?
I wouldn’t categorize it as a loss of faith, so much as if eyes were opened to what we’ve been talking about. It’s not because public education fails — it’s what’s needed in order to help it be successful.
In February 2020, shortly before schools shut down, the district faced a potential budget deficit and even issued layoff warnings. Federal and state funding helped through the pandemic and will make up for a $100 million deficit in 2021–22. However, in 2022–23, a $112 million deficit looms. Do you anticipate difficult budget and contract talks?
It might be difficult if the topic is broached about a deficit when you have an influx of [state and federal] money. It doesn’t seem to make sense. So yes, it could be difficult, but it doesn’t have to be.
This remains a difficult conversation for all school districts and educator unions when the chronic underfunding of public education has persisted for decades. But yes, we do have to come to an agreement, and there are ways in which we need to get real about spending money. And the voters of California need to get on board with funding education, and the federal government could fully fund education as well.
Does the union have a position on the proposed recall of three school board members and the proposed ballot measure to replace the elected board with one appointed by the mayor?
Teaching is political, bottom line, and educator unions are invested in the political health of the city. We are very concerned and we’re watching. We also support the democratically elected school board as it exists.
The worry is that [the charter amendment] is anti-democratic, and a regressive move from a democratically elected school board that some folks may be frustrated with. It’s not to say that we don’t have our own conflicts or criticism or frustrations, but there’s no situation that we see that would necessitate that kind of need for an appointment system.
Sara Gaiser is a longtime Bay Area journalist and San Francisco resident.
