S.F. Board of Education Meeting CHEAT SHEET
Public commenting is an important opportunity to make your powerful voice heard.
Let the S.F. Board of Education and SFUSD Leadership know how parents and caregivers feel, how the district can do better for our city’s kids, our teachers, our schools!
Learn more about how to attend a meeting or make a public comment here.
Please note that as SF Parents is focused on our core issues, we only do
the summary/takes on the most pertinent agenda items related to our advocacy campaigns. If you see that something on the BOE agenda is omitted, it is likely for this reason.
6/17/2025 Regular Meeting: Monitoring Workshop at 6:30pm:
- Full meeting agenda on BoardDocs here. Agenda summary from SF Parent Coalition follows below.
SUMMARY – WHAT’S ON THIS WEEK’S AGENDA:
SFUSD just released its proposed budget for next year, with $113.8 million in cuts. While there’s been progress on transparency and student-centered planning, we’re still worried about how these cuts could affect classrooms—especially support for teachers, student services, and special education. SF Parents urges the district to be more transparent about tradeoffs and ensure new curriculum initiatives are supported despite financial constraints.
BUDGET-RELATED AGENDA ITEMS
Item H.2. Public hearing on SFUSD 2025-26 First Draft Recommended Budget (presentation link, draft budget overview link, LCAP & budget link)
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- SFUSD’s 2025-26 recommended budget includes $1.2 billion in expected revenue and $1.3 billion in planned expenditures.
- The 2025-26 budget implements $113.8 million in spending cuts required in the SFUSD Fiscal Stabilization Plan, which has been achieved by eliminating 448.16 full-time equivalent (FTE) positions.
- Progress we’ve seen towards greater transparency, accessibility, and clear vision for our students:
- SFUSD is presenting a stronger vision for students + focused on student success
- The district is sharing steps towards the goal of budget stabilization, which helps with transparency
- Why we’re still concerned:
- Though necessary, these budget cuts will affect teaching and learning by:
- Reducing professional development for teachers
- Reducing non-classroom personnel in schools
- Reducing high school student internship and work-based learning opportunities
- “Pausing” the Shared Schoolyard and Environmental Science Center programs
- Other potential impacts TBD (we don’t have access to full details yet)
- As restricted revenue from grants and one-time funds are depleted, budget transfers from the Unrestricted General Fund will increasingly be used to pay for programs like Special Education
- SFUSD is not meeting CDE’s budget Reserve for Economic Uncertainties requirement, which is 3% of expenditures
- Multiyear projections continue to show General Fund deficits of $83 million in 2026-27 and $71 million in 2027-28. These projections do not account for salary increases from upcoming negotiations with labor partners.
- Though necessary, these budget cuts will affect teaching and learning by:
Item I.1. Adoption of the Special Education Local Plan (SELPA) (presentation link)
- There are 10,148 students in the San Francisco SELPA, and the budget for 2025-26 is $279 million. Increasingly, funding for the program is coming from local funds:
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- $184.4 million (66%) from SFUSD’s General Fund
- $25 million (9%) from SF Public Education Enrichment Fund (PEEF)
- Why we’re concerned:
- PEEF funds are increasingly used for Special Education programs, from $9.96 million in 2024-25 to $25 million in 2025-26 (26% of the total PEEF budget, see agenda items F.3 regarding the PEEF Community Advisory Committee report and G.1 regarding the PEEF Expenditure Plan)
Our Take: SFUSD should address how it will address the classroom impacts of the 2025-26 budget cuts, and where else the district will find non-priority items to eliminate from the budget to address deficits in the next two fiscal years. Questions we’re asking:
- SFUSD states that teacher professional development and non-classroom personnel will be reduced next school year, but how will this these actions affect teaching and learning when new English Language Arts and math curriculum are being implemented? Further, how will SFUSD meet its high school career readiness goals when it is reducing internships, work-based learning opportunities, and career technical education programs?
- After reducing nearly 450 FTE to cut $113.8 million in 2025-26, what else can SFUSD eliminate from its budget as it faces General Fund deficits of of $83 million in 2026-27 and $71 million in 2027-28? How will these future reductions affect student outcomes?
- How does SFUSD plan to address the increasing need to transfer funds from the Unrestricted General Fund to the Restricted General Fund to cover the growing costs of Special Education programs?
STUDENT OUTCOMES-RELATED AGENDA ITEMS
Item F.1 2025-26 LCAP Advisory Committee Recommendations (presentation link)
Item F.2 2025-26 Community Advisory Committee for Special Education Annual Report (presentation link)
Item F.3 2025-26 PEEF Community Advisory Committee Annual Presentation (presentation link)
- The LCAP Advisory Committee, CAC for Special Education, and PEEF CAC each had important recommendations to address the fiscal solvency, operational efficiency, and student and parent engagement, and long-term success of these important SFUSD programs.
Item G.2 2024-25 Board of Education Self-Evaluation (presentation link)
Item J.2 K-2 Reading Difficulties Risk Screener Adoption (presentation link)
Item K.11 Amendments to Board Policy 6152.1-Math Placement Policy (policy link)
- The new Reading Risk Screener and Middle School Math Placement Policy are important reminders that literacy and math proficiency are critical academic goals that must be met for all students.
Our Take: SFUSD should consider how it can implement the recommendations of the parent advisory committees and the results of the Board self-evaluation in order to strengthen its focus on student outcomes. Meanwhile, it must ensure that new English Language Arts and Math curricula, risk screeners, and middle school math course options are implemented successfully. Questions we’re asking:
- How will SFUSD ensure that it addresses the recommendations of the parent advisory committees? If recommendations are not adopted, how will the reasons against adoption be communicated?
- What project management best practices will SFUSD use to successfully implement the various literacy and math initiatives (new curriculum, risk screeners, pathways)?
- How is SFUSD ensuring that the proposed 2025-26 budget contains sufficient funding to ensure successful student outcomes?
As a reminder….SF Parent Coalition’s community continues to demand from SFUSD:
- AN INCREASED, DEMONSTRATED FOCUS ON STUDENTS:
- We want to see the district’s clear plan and commitment to a baseline of excellence and equity across every SFUSD school. Without this clarity and vision, or analysis of how these decisions align with our student outcomes goals, it is impossible to know if this is a truly student-centered plan that will maximize success for our students even despite budget cuts.
- GREATER TRANSPARENCY AND COMMUNITY ACCESSIBILITY:
- SFUSD plans need greater detail and transparency. Without an analysis of school site impacts, it’s unclear if SFUSD is prioritizing student success. The Board should not approve budgets or plans without confidence in their accuracy and impacts on teaching and learning. We urge SFUSD to provide more thorough impact analyses to increase transparency on decision-making and build trust with the community.
- SFUSD needs to be more open and honest about the budget. SFUSD committed to updating the Fiscal and Operational Health Dashboard last summer, and then abruptly abandoned that commitment in the fall. Fiscal topics from the short-lived Ad Hoc Committee should be included in all regular Board meetings, and the dashboard should be updated monthly until the budget is solvent.