For more than a year, San Francisco public schools have been planning for closures or mergers, leaving families and staff in a holding pattern. They’ll have to wait a little bit longer.
After much speculation and a lot of anxiety, San Francisco Unified School District officials delayed the news from this week until an unidentified date in October.
“I know there’s a lot of anticipation and emotions around our recommendation and how SFUSD will support the affected communities, but it is essential that we carefully review everything before making the announcement,” said Superintendent Matt Wayne in a Sunday announcement. “Simply put, we want to make sure we get this right.”
Wayne said the district still needs a careful review of several items, including its fiscal analysis and a transition and support plan for affected students and families.
And after more than a year of discussion, outreach, and community input, Wayne also said there’s still need to “meaningfully consult” with city, school, and community leaders.
There’s no word whether the closure process is facing a delay because the person leading it, Phil Kim, left last month. Mayor London Breed appointed Kim to replace former school board President Lainie Motamedi, who resigned abruptly, citing health reasons.
Last week, Parents for Public School San Francisco called for SFUSD to “extend the timeline.”
The SF teachers union, United Educators of San Francisco, wasn’t surprised by the delay. “We continue to demand that the district present and be held accountable to a serious plan that support school communities through this process,” said UESF vice president Frank Lara, adding that “inconsistency and lack of transparency” would further erode trust.
The rest of the closure timeline will remain the same, Wayne added. The school board will debate the draft list in November, and the district will present a final list to the board for a vote in December. The closures and mergers will take effect in the 2025-2026 school year.
Here’s what you need to know, and what comes next.
How did SFUSD get here?
In short, the district says it has too few students spread unevenly across too many schools. By reducing the number of schools, SFUSD can distribute its resources to students more effectively. That’s the main message Wayne has been hammering home for months.
Student enrollment in SFUSD’s noncharter schools is now under 49,000, a drop of more than 4,000 (7 percent) since 2017. Going back further, the district began the 2001 school year with more than 60,000 students. This isn’t just a pandemic blip, and officials estimate losing another 4,600 students by 2032.
With all those empty seats, the district estimates that its current buildings – 102 schools – could fit 14,000 more students.
While declining enrollment and staffing shortages are dogging districts across the state, SFUSD is an outlier for its uneven spread. Some schools are under-enrolled, and others have high demand. But simply closing under-enrolled schools won’t fly if those schools all serve lower income neighborhoods and communities of color.
Since enrollment and attendance drives state funding, the loss of students has contributed to a yearslong financial crisis, prompting state officials to step in and assert veto power over the district’s fiscal decisions.
They told the Standard recently they haven’t yet exercised that power, but they have eliminated several assistant principal positions and forced the district to change its hiring process, which its own head of human resources called “dysfunctional” at a recent school board meeting. The disruption has created a bottleneck and exacerbated staff shortages to start this school year.
It’s not a state takeover, but the threat looms. If the state deems it necessary to issue emergency loans to prevent bankruptcy, San Francisco would lose local control over the district.
The district estimates that each closed school will save $1 million a year. But it emphasizes that closures alone won’t solve the budget crisis. Employee wages, benefits, and pensions account for about 80 percent of SFUSD’s budget.
Officials cut $103 million from this year’s $1.3 billion budget, and have pledged to cut another $113 million for 2025-26, which means cutting more than 500 full-time-equivalent administrative and teaching positions.
How is SFUSD deciding which schools to close?
In August 2023, the district launched what it calls the Resource Alignment Initiative to make the school closure decisions. The initiative included a committee of parents, teachers, and community members that met a dozen times to craft recommendations.
The district says it’s formulating scores for every school. It’s considering a range of criteria, including access to various programs, historical inequities, school culture, academic performance, building conditions, and teacher turnover. The district held several in-person events this year and surveys on the criteria. Respondents most favored easy access to school sites and academic excellence.
The criteria under the umbrella term “equity” are supposed to count for 50 percent of a school’s eventual score. But district officials have also admitted there would be no precise formula to make its closure decisions.
Stanford University researchers have been working on an “equity audit” to analyze different closure scenarios. It’s unclear when the audit will be released, but in announcing the delay, Superintendent Wayne said the audit’s data still need to be integrated into the closure plan.
What is the reaction from families and staff?
No surprise, the process has been rife with anxiety for parents and families.
Some advisory committee meetings were tense, as members questioned the lack of clarity in the data presented to them in order to understand the district’s rationale.
The teacher’s union hasn’t opposed closures outright, but it has warned of stiff resistance if closures fall heavily on the city’s southeast, where low income communities and students of color are concentrated.
The district is walking a tightrope in choosing which schools to close or change. If families – whether in the southeast with more public school students or the wealthier west side – are upset enough to leave the district or city, enrollment could take another hit.
What comes after the list is released?
District staff planned to fan out to the listed schools to offer support. Officials have said each school will get some kind of district “engagement” at least twice through November, but haven’t yet released a detailed plan.
As students, families, and staff absorb the news, there will be room for more debate. On Nov. 12, the seven-member school board will take up the recommendations, and district officials have said they could still make changes at this point.
A final slate will go to the board for a vote on Dec. 12. The timing is notable because four school board seats are up for grabs in the November election. By Dec. 12, the election results should be clear. There will be at least two and up to four new members voted in. However, they won’t take their seats until January.
The district has emphasized it does not plan to sell empty school buildings, but it may lease some of them to bring in revenue. Officials have also said extra schools will be necessary to host students whose schools are under renovation. There’s a $749 million bond on the November ballot for school facilities; if voters approve it, the district will launch a series of major upgrades.
The closures will take effect in the 2025-2026 school year, so families will spend the spring 2025 semester adjusting to the upcoming changes. Families at affected schools will have priority when requesting new assignments. A comprehensive transition plan is supposed to accompany the closure list this week.
Until SFUSD finalizes its list of closures, other decisions are left hanging: which schools to repair, for example, or how to reorganize its kindergarten assignment system. The closures will also trigger another big adjustment. The final plan in December will change budget calculations, with the state looking over the district’s shoulder.
It all means that 2025 will be just as momentous for SF public schools as 2024.