Today is the first day of summer for San Francisco Unified students. It’s one week later than it was supposed to be, thanks to a four-day teacher strike in February, the first in 47 years. The strike was just one dramatic high-stakes event in a school year full of them.
The year began and ended with tensions over the federal government’s hostility toward San Francisco. When last summer ended, fears of immigration raids were top of mind at SFUSD. Six percent of its roughly 49,000 students are relatively new immigrants. Yesterday, SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su appeared in Washington before a Republican-led House committee eager to make political hay out of blue-state school policies regarding gender ideology, parents rights, and more.
While battling laryngitis, Su not only avoided fanning partisan flames, she won praise from the committee chair, Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI), who begrudgingly acknowledged “some good positive shows … taking place” in San Francisco.
Walberg and other GOP committee members were otherwise eager to interrupt Su and the other witnesses: superintendents from Chicago and Loudoun County, Virginia, and the head of the National Center for Youth Law.
Su was helped by an unlikely ally, House member Kevin Kiley, who recently switched from Republican to independent as he fights for reelection in his gerrymandered California district. Kiley has been critical of SFUSD, but Wednesday, he threw Su several softball questions, letting her highlight the district’s improvements in curriculum — algebra, ethnic studies, and reading — and its willingness to listen to parents.
“That’s great to hear,” said Kiley. “And the budget’s in better shape too?”
“That’s also correct,” said Su. “We have a balanced budget for three years. That means more stability for our families, students, and definitely our educators.”
Su repeated the district’s commitment to diversity without leaning too much on buzzwords or specifics that might give Republicans political ammunition. “We welcome all students as they are,” said Su. “We believe firmly that when we allow students to come in and be themselves we allow students to be thriving adults.”
The testimony closed a turbulent year with minimal fireworks. In some ways, Republicans helped Su do what it’s often hard for the district to do at the local level: communicate that, slowly but surely, there are improvements.
Despite Wednesday’s moments of calm and comity, SFUSD is the target of a new Justice Department investigation.
Beyond the shadow of that “compliance review,” there’s still plenty of work for the district. Academic scores remain so off-track that SFUSD recently revised its long-term goals.
Enrollment and attendance continue to drop, threatening delicate attempts to stabilize the $1.3 billion budget. And promises of expansion in some areas — special education, Mandarin immersion, and transitional kindergarten — face the reality of chronic staffing shortages and uncertain funding.
The next school year — and ones to follow — will have much at stake. Here’s what happened this year.
Academics, easier said than done
Announced Monday, the DOJ review of SFUSD and three other California districts is focused on instruction related to gender and sexuality and parents’ right to opt their kids out, a right enforced by a recent Supreme Court decision.
Su told House members yesterday that SFUSD abides by the law. As Rep. Kiley noted in his questions for Su, SFUSD this year replaced its old homegrown ethnic studies curriculum and vowed not to let teachers insert their own political beliefs or agendas.
The new material, called Voices, is supposed to keep teachers on the same page. But one told The Frisc months ago that he still leaned on the old curriculum, and reporting this week found another teacher inserting pointed personal views and requiring students to email government officials about issues affecting Latinos.
California only requires one semester of ethnic studies, but SFUSD requires two semesters for graduation. To opt out, students can take an alternative two-semester class like AP African American Studies. While some parents have objected to the content of ethnic studies, others protest the extra required semester that their kids could otherwise spend on other subjects.
Schedule flexibility was also central to the much-debated reintroduction of algebra for eighth graders.
The district abolished the course in 2014, saying it would correct racial segregation in math classes, or “tracking.” But nearly a decade later, research showed it didn’t help students of color; in fact, their scores dropped.
After almost two years of testing different options, SFUSD decided this year to automatically enroll all eighth graders who qualify in both Math 8 (the regular, pre-algebra course) and Algebra 1. With the arrangement, students who don’t automatically qualify can still take Algebra 1 if they sacrifice an elective, which has upset some families. The district continues to test yet another option that compresses three years of pre-algebra math into two to prepare students for Algebra 1 in grade eight.
Changes in middle school math alone won’t boost academic performance among kids who need it most. The district has also revamped elementary school math curriculum and is expanding after-school math programs. As Su told the House committee, eighth grade algebra returned because SFUSD “listened to the parents.” But the district still has a long way to go to bring test scores up to the goals it set in 2022.
Budget threats and milestones
The Washington hearing was a fitting bookend to a school year that began with the fear of — and preparation for — federal immigration raids. ICE agents were never reported at San Francisco public schools, but they did show up near schools across the Bay Bridge, at the airport, and at a home in Sunnyside.
The fear of detention has also kept some families from sending kids to school. That’s not just a problem for those students’ education and health (many low-income students rely on school for meals); it has added to SFUSD’s budget woes. “Our budget is actually more impacted by chronic absenteeism than by declining enrollment,” said school board vice president Jaime Huling at this week’s board meeting.
Keep up the good work, and don’t spend more than you have.
Elliott Duchon, California Department of Education advisor
State funding is based on average daily attendance, which school districts are lobbying lawmakers to change. “The long game is Sacramento,” school board president Phil Kim told The Frisc in April. “Sustainable schools require sustainable funding.” Kim won a special election last week to keep his seat but must run again in November.
The Trump administration is also cutting education grants, which could amount to a loss of $12.2 million next year, SFUSD finance staff told the board Tuesday night. They also said an uptick in the latest state budget — about $56 million more for SFUSD than in earlier projections — will be offset by declining enrollment and attendance and the growth of special education.
The district’s fiscal health remains a work in progress, but it reached a major milestone this year: improving its standing with the state, meaning less oversight from the California Department of Education.
“Congratulations,” CDE advisor Elliott Duchon, who has worked with SFUSD on its budget woes since 2021, said Tuesday. “Keep up the good work, and don’t spend more than you have.”
Frustration back home
SFUSD spends most of its money on staff: salaries, benefits, and pensions. The tension between fiscal prudence, employee satisfaction, and quality education boiled over with a four-day teachers strike in February. The United Educators of San Francisco won a pay raise and fully funded healthcare. The district hopes the package will help with recruitment and stem turnover, an ongoing struggle statewide.
Transitional kindergarten (TK) and special education are priorities. Both are a growing demand — TK is driving more enrollment, according to the district — and both are legal obligations. They also require educators with extra credentials. Expanding both, as well as adding a Mandarin immersion school in the fall of 2027, adds more pressure to staff up.
At the same time, SFUSD must reckon with some schools that are partially empty. Officials say they have 14,000 more “seats” than students to fill them. A plan to close or merge about a dozen schools was shelved in 2024 and led to the departure of Su’s predecessor.
But Su never took the idea completely off the table. The latest plan is to first redesign the school assignment process, then announce closures in the spring of 2028. But some schools fear the central office is quietly forcing “soft” closures by disinvesting in their programs. That’s what staff at the Mission Education Center and The Academy high school say happened to their programs, both dismantled this year without a board vote. According to district data, their student bodies had shrunk to 62 and 98 respectively at the time of the closure announcements.
Educators serving immigrants across the district say they’ve been hit unfairly by budget cuts. District officials say they’re basing decisions strictly on enrollment, which has raised the ire of several school board members, who say district staff have not been forthcoming about enrollment strategies.
At Tuesday’s meeting, board VP Huling acknowledged that the district has to “take political lumps, potentially” for controversial but necessary cuts — but she and the rest of the seven-member board demanded to know more about the rationale behind those cuts.
Normally, Su would be there to hear their frustrations. Instead, she was dodging pointed questions in Washington and receiving some surprising kudos.
“Thank you for your leadership,” said Rep. Kiley, the one-time critic. “I hope it can set an example for other districts across California and the country.”
