2/24/26 Board of Education Meeting Summary
Public comment from parents and staff was generally focused on preserving the arts and electives. While electives are currently threatened by the Fiscal Stabilization Plan’s possible switch from 7 periods to 6 periods for Middle and High Schools, it turns out that even though the Staff Reductions presentation the board voted on tonight included cuts of “2 positions” of both Art and Music, no schools are (currently) losing any Art or Music, which is good news, though it highlights once again that district communication needs to improved, and viewed through a lens of “how would a parent understand this information?”
Goal 3 College/Career Readiness Progress Monitoring (presentation link)
Before the BOE got to the Staff Reductions, SFUSD presented its scheduled Goal 3 Monitoring Presentation.
- There has been improvement in the metrics generally, and one Interim Goal has been achieved (% of Grade 10 students who are on-track to graduation)
- Math (as measured by Star Math) seems to also be slowly improving, though Grade 9/10 Math proficiency only at 39%
- AI Math tool Edia was credited with some of this improvement
- Commissioner Ray asked the hard question as to whether or not the district was focused on just graduating students or getting them ‘college ready’
- Dr. Su’s response to this was uncharacteristically underwhelming, essentially saying that the students should get diplomas so they can get jobs
LCAP Confusion
The next item on the agenda was the LCAP… or was it? The BOE and District had a confusing conversation about whether or not there was going to be an LCAP presentation tonight, which Dr. Su had queued up and was ready to present, but then it was decided not to present the LCAP. It was a publicly awkward disconnect for all, though at least allowed us to more quickly get to the main item.
Fiscal and Operational Health Update–Staffing Reductions (presentation here)
The District outlined staff reduction recommendations that they wanted the BOE to vote on – again, these are NOT part of the budget plan that Dr. Su is still working on, but rather “Particular Kinds of Services” (PKS) layoffs to align to projected enrollment and subsequent (pre-cut) budgets.
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- March 15 is the deadline for these layoff notices
- These preliminary notices are a normal part of the budget cycle
- 42 FTE layoffs this year, compared to 298 last year, a massive improvement!
- Largely due to better position control this year, thank you Deputy Superintendent Chris Mount-Benites for your work here!
- Hired some temporary staff to backfill for those on leave
- Actual layoffs may be less (retirement, separations etc.)
- 10 Certificated employees – 2 Music, 2 Art, 6 Counselors – these are situations where people have been on leave
- NO schools are currently losing art/music teachers or counselor positions today (district verbiage “reduction of positions” makes this seem otherwise, but “position” is HR speak for # of people, not whether or not a school will have someone in that position)
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- 32 Classified employees – these positions are largely being cut because site leaders are realigning their allocations
- Who is not included tonight?
- Central Office Admins will also receive notice
- Management and Non-Management Civil Service Positions will receive a 60-day notice
- Anything related to Fiscal Stabilization Plan
Given how confusingly the district communicated what it was doing with these staff reductions, it took a fair amount of questioning from Commissioners Ray and President Kim to get the above information clarified, which was frustrating for all.
Speaking of frustration, there was a heated exchange near the end of the evening when President Kim outlined what he hoped would be covered next week when he and other commissioners met with Deputy Superintendent Chris Mount-Benites to preview the Fiscal Stabilization Plan. Mount-Benites seemed entirely caught off guard by the request, almost shouting that he needed to have the request in writing. Dr. Su stepped in to say that they had discussed it and would provide the notes, but it was the second big awkward moment of the night, and it is clear that communication between the board and district leadership needs to be smoothed out.
Once we got past that, the board voted to approve the necessary measures to enact these relatively routine layoffs, though Commissioner Alexander still wasn’t on board and voted “No” on both the H1 (Certificated) and H2 (Classified) layoff votes.