Like many public school districts across the country, San Francisco Unified has faced chronic teacher shortages and turnover for years. But in mid-August, it celebrated good news: nearly 95 percent of its classrooms were fully staffed on the first day of school.
The staffing boost has a positive ripple effect. It lets schools use extra funding that had been restricted by state regulators, who took partial control of SFUSD finances in early 2024 and put in place a hiring freeze because of the district’s budget mess.
But now, principals can now bring on extra staff, like teachers who support kids one-on-one with reading and math. This is important because SFUSD in 2022 made a five-year pledge to raise math and reading scores, as well as college and career readiness for high schoolers. Those goals are off-track.
But school principals say there’s a snag in the plan. To hit its classroom staffing goals, SFUSD didn’t expand the ranks of teachers. It combined some classrooms and reassigned “interventionists” — out-of-classroom teachers who normally work one-on-one with students — according to the United Educators of San Francisco.
Now principals worry that in some schools, students behind in math or reading won’t get the extra help interventionists provided. Classroom teachers could especially use the assistance this year, because they’re scrambling to roll out new curriculums in math and reading. Myra Quadros, an elementary school principal, warns that losing the safety net means more kids could end up on special education plans and require more intensive resources.
“You won’t have that intervention to catch [students with learning gaps] and get them caught up,” says Quadros, who is also the vice president of the principals’ union United Administrators of San Francisco.
There’s more than a little irony in play here. The extra money that the classroom staffing goal unlocked comes from the Student Success Fund, which San Francisco voters approved in 2022. It funnels millions of dollars of taxes into the district for a variety of purposes. (This year’s amount is $29 million.) One of those purposes is to hire one-on-one interventionists — the exact same folks who were reassigned to classrooms to hit the staffing goals.
When state regulators took partial control of SFUSD’s financial decisions last year, they blocked the district from hiring what they deemed non-essential roles, including the interventionists the Student Success Fund money was already set aside for.
The state’s rationale: With its payroll and accounting systems a mess, SFUSD first had to prioritize its core school staffing responsibilities.
That box is now checked, and SFUSD says money from the fund to hire 117 extra positions is now “allocated,” according to spokesperson Katrina Kincade — about $9.5 million of the $14 million portion earmarked for supplemental hiring. As of Aug. 20, 101 of those positions were filled, Kincade said.
But it’s unclear how many of those positions, filled or not, are for the one-on-one interventionists that principals say are critical to their staff. Neither district spokespeople, UASF, or the teachers union could come up with a specific count.
UASF president Anna Klafter, also the principal of Independence High School, says one problem stems from timing. She says the “95 percent classrooms filled” announcement last month took principals by surprise.
As they prepared for the new school year this August, many assumed the district wouldn’t hit its goal anytime soon, which meant not being able to use the money for interventionists. Instead, some put the money toward other positions or services (which was acceptable within the rules of the fund).
For example, one elementary school couldn’t hire an extra reading interventionist, so the principal used the funds to increase library staff hours, according to Quadros.
It’s a lot of money the voters approved, and students deserve to get these funds.
Meredith Dodson, executive director of the San Francisco Parent Coalition
If principals have spent the funds on other positions, it’s unclear if they can still hire extra teachers. Or if they can, how many eligible candidates are still job-hunting one month into the school year.
“It’s a lot of money the voters approved, and students deserve to get these funds,” says Meredith Dodson, executive director of the San Francisco Parent Coalition. “We want to make sure that they don’t get held up. We’d love to know from the district and the city if they’re seeing these funds getting out to the schools in the manner voters had directed.”
Extra help, in theory
SFUSD is still struggling with a fiscal crisis. It just pared $114 million from its $1.3 billion budget and is preparing to cut nearly $60 million more.
The 2022 Student Success Fund was supposed to help in these circumstances. The extra property tax is meant to flow to schools to use in specific ways, no matter what the budget outlook.
For the 2024-25 school year, $26 million was supposed to be available. This April, as the 2024-25 school year neared its end, only $5.4 million of the $26 million had been spent. Parent organizations accustomed to paying for extra teachers to reduce class sizes were also getting blocked.
Until the state declares SFUSD’s financial situation “stable,” advisors will have power to approve hires one by one and to pause or revoke financial decisions.
The state’s education advisors took partial control in early 2024, essentially getting veto power over every hire, after years of warnings that the district had no “position control.” In other words, its human resources systems were such a mess, the district had trouble knowing who was on the payroll, where they were working, and how much they were paid.
The district’s personnel and payroll system was partially to blame, and it also fouled up employee paychecks and benefits for years. SFUSD finally flipped the switch on a new system this summer, at a cost of tens of millions of extra dollars.
But until the state declares SFUSD’s financial situation “stable” — it currently has a “negative” rating — the advisors can approve hires one by one and pause or revoke financial decisions.
It’s still not clear how much the advisors are holding up new hires. Soon after classes began in August, SFUSD laid out rules for supplemental hiring. State approval for each hire was the first step on the list. “I don’t how operationally easier it’s going to be to hire extra staff for schools that [have the funds],” says Klafter. “There are still a lot of barriers, including [state] approval.”
The state’s advisors did not respond to requests for comment.
There are other rules that still restrict hiring. Teachers cannot be brought on to reduce class sizes. New hires from outside the district can only get temporary contracts. Staff cannot transfer between schools. And hard-to-staff schools with lower academic rates get hiring priority.
(To be clear, the other major portion of the Student Success Fund — about $11 million — does not have any stated restrictions. It goes to immediate needs, like equipment and materials, the African American Achievement and Leadership Initiative, and the Mission Bay Hub. )
UASF’s Quadros doubts many positions will get filled this year due to the hiring hurdles. She says the district shouldn’t have waited until the last minute to tell principals the money could start flowing again.
“The priority should be classrooms,” Quadros says. “But there’s a way we could do it that doesn’t feel … so disruptive. We could build staffing and budgets together. They don’t know unless they talk to us.”