NEGOTIATIONS WILL CONTINUE Thursday between San Francisco Unified School District leaders and the district’s teachers’ union as a potential strike looms over the talks, according to SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su.
Su said the school district’s legal team would come back to the bargaining table following the release of a fact-finding report by an independent arbitration panel Tuesday that made recommendations on how to break the impasse.
The fact-finding report is part of the legal process for resolving a labor dispute before a strike can take place. Teachers and other staff represented by the union have been working without a contract since last summer and voted overwhelmingly last week to authorize a strike if an agreement can’t be reached.
Su spoke at a press conference at SFUSD headquarters on Franklin Street on Wednesday to address the report. The United Educators of San Francisco will hold its own press conference Thursday morning to give its perspective on the mandated neutral panel findings.
The union said in a statement that it felt the report was not thorough enough, and its representative on the three-member arbitration panel only partially agreed with its conclusions.
Findings reveal deep divisions
The two sides were able to agree on some points but remained unable to resolve differences on several key issues raised by the union, including pay increases, health coverage for family members, and putting a hard cap on class sizes.
“The report does not go far enough — and the recommendations here alone will not solve the stability crisis in our district,” said United Educators of San Francisco President Cassondra Curiel in a statement. “But we are happy to see validation of what we already know — that SFUSD can and must stabilize staffing and special education programs for our students.”
The sides also continued to differ on a policy on the use of artificial intelligence and about enacting policies to support unhoused and vulnerable immigrant students and families.
The arbitration panel said that the District offered to have dependents’ health insurance fully covered, but the mechanism was rejected by the union. That’s because the solution, which involved tapping into money from a previous parcel tax increase, would not be included in the new contract but would be formalized by a separate memorandum of understanding that would expire in three years, along with the parcel tax. Including full coverage in the contract remained one of the biggest sticking points as of Wednesday, along with bolstering the hiring of special education teachers.
The union was asking for a 9% raise that would be enacted over two years, while the District countered with a 6% wage increase paid in three 2% increases through 2027.
The arbitration panel agreed a wage increase was warranted based on cost-of-living increases, but it split the difference, given the union’s rejection of a three-year contract in favor of a two-year deal. The panel recommended the 6% raise but said it should be paid in two increments of 3% each.
Any spending changes must be approved by the state Department of Education, which began oversight of SFUSD in 2024 after the District received a negative certification for its steep financial deficits. The oversight included temporary hiring freezes and requires the District to get spending plans approved. That has increased pressure to make any spending adjustments as amenable to state regulators as possible. The school board passed a balanced $1.2 billion budget for the 2025-26 school year last summer that included about $113 million in cuts.
Su was granted emergency authority at a meeting of the school board on Tuesday that gives her the ability to hire substitute teachers if a strike is called, make spending decisions to keep schools open, and monitor strike activities to ensure no District equipment or resources are used to support the teachers’ union’s messaging.
The panel also declined to endorse one of the union’s main demands: hiring more special education teachers and alleviating overworked staff in that area by changing the way their workload is calculated. The report recommended creating a pilot program at a handful of elementary and middle schools but agreed with the District’s position that the cost would not pass state scrutiny.
The union also wanted district leaders to agree to language declaring SFUSD a sanctuary school district for vulnerable immigrant populations and agree to provide resources, including housing support, for anyone who needed it if they had students in the district’s schools.
Su said SFUSD would agree to issue a separate memo asserting its support for its students, including immigrant and housing insecure families. But she said she agreed with the arbitration report that said housing was not a mandatory point to resolve the labor negotiations.
The talks are scheduled to resume Thursday at 5 p.m., according to Su, who said it was her goal to avoid a strike.
“Our goal remains the same. We need to keep our students in our classrooms where they can continue to learn and receive the support they deserve and need,” she said.