9/9/25 BOE Meeting Notes
While budget and teacher staffing were the primary meeting agenda items, public comment from principals continued to highlight UASF’s desire for a wage increase (they are currently ‘frozen’) especially in light of trying to learn new systems (like Frontline), and spending a lot of time on payroll & hiring. Public Comment was followed by the presentation from the Latinx Community Council on their Recommendations which can be found here. Some of the top requests/recommendations from the LCC:
- More bilingual SPED workers
- Parents included in all IEP meetings (which is apparently not happening?)
- More district staff time to work with the council
Fiscal & Operational Health
Presented by new Deputy Superintendent of Business Services and Operations, Chris Mount-Benites, this fiscal update (snapshot found here) essentially reflects “where the district is now” in terms of the budget deficit, relative to what was adopted in the spring. Overall, this new hire answered questions completely and adeptly, and we are cautiously optimistic about what this might mean as to how SFUSD is able to navigate the continued choppy fiscal waters. A few key notes from the Update:
- When reading the snapshot, Green is what was adopted, Blue is actuals as of now, so by comparing the two one can see what has changed (e.g. the deficit for 25-26 is now almost $54M, up ~$3.5M more than projected).
- Deputy Superintendent Mount-Benites created LA’s realtime budget dashboard, and while President Kim (and the rest of us) eagerly awaits a similar dashboard to be in place for SFUSD, it sounds like there is more work to be done in Frontline for the data to be properly structured.
- The biggest single driver for the discrepancy between current actuals and prior projections is that the actual costs of teacher salaries came in $31M higher than the averages used to estimate their costs. This seems to have happened partially because the averages weren’t being updated / institutional knowledge was lost around this when the estimates were made – let’s hope this mistake isn’t made again in this next budget cycle.
- SFUSD has lost some revenue from unused properties, partially because some leases are not being renewed on properties that need work – Deputy Superintendent Mount-Benites seems to be working on a plan to better utilize vacant District real estate.
Revisions to SFUSD Guardrails and Interim Guardrail Measures
District Staff walked the BOE through the current draft of the Guardrails found here
- For each Guardrail there are “Key Initiatives and Data Collection” identified with corresponding metrics, found on the slides following each Guardrail
- While some of the numbers continue to appear arbitrary, there is clearly improved rigor and the board seems happy with the progress
- Commissioner Gupta asked tough questions around suspensions
- If “% of AA K-12 students suspended” is the impact metric, will principals feel like they cannot use this tool when necessary?
- Is there a way to recast the impact metric as something positive, e.g. something like “days attended?”
Guardrail 4: 4.1 HR classroom staffing 4.2 Fiscal stability status 4.3 Frontline implementation status
4.1 HR classroom staffing update found here
The improvement of staffing has been considerable on a number of metrics
- The % of fully staffed classrooms has increased from 79% in 2023 to 95% this August
- Only 93 of the teachers are on Emergency Credential this year, down from 203 the year prior (emergency credential teachers are included in “fully staffed classrooms”)
- Coverage of the remaining (5% of) classroom vacancies with subs is up from 73% to 97%
The biggest staffing challenges are in TK and SPED – of the 38 open classroom teaching positions, 19 are Elementary, in addition to 40 SPED vacancies – and each has its own challenges:
- TK – this is the first year the state is strictly enforcing credential requirements for TK, which gives the district less flexibility in filling positions – there is flexibility on giving an emergency credential, but district cannot waive preschool experience
- SPED – there continues to be a statewide shortage, and staff are working on a strategy here – simply opening more positions won’t “magically produce more teachers.” Staff are having weekly meetings on this to see what can be done.
Commissioner Huling suggested broadening our view on staffing by perhaps bringing in feedback from site leaders on what is happening in their schools.
There was no discussion of 4.2 Fiscal stability status or 4.3 Frontline implementation status
Employment Contracts for District Executives
While engaging in a national search for a suitable candidate, Dr. Su wants to hire an interim Educational Services Deputy. Oddly, the name of the candidate (Teresa Shipp) was redacted, for the first time in BOE memory. Commissioners Fisher, Ray and Alexander all expressed concerns around this redaction, the process and lack of transparency. While Dr. Su said that disclosing names of past candidates proved problematic, Commissioner Alexander smartly pointed out that if a candidate can’t take a certain level of public scrutiny, they might not be a good fit for the position.
Vote: 5 Yes, 2 No (Alexander & Ray)
Board Rule and Procedure 9323 Meeting Conduct
The Meeting Procedure can be found here
This discussion started at 11:19pm, and was mercifully brief.
- Commissioner Ray shared that in light of concerns about transparency, she was not ready to vote for this today and would prefer for this to be part of Ad Hoc committee work.
- Commissioner Alexander agreed with Commissioner Ray that the timing was not great, but ultimately voted for the changes
Vote: 6 Yes, 1 No (Ray)