San Francisco teachers union and district hold final talks this weekend
SF teachers to strike if demands not met
Negotiators for the United Educators of San Francisco and the SFUSD are set to resume talks, even though previous negotiations have proven unsuccessful. The two parties have been negotiating wages, healthcare programs, specialty programs and special education resources.
SAN FRANCISCO - All schools in San Francisco Unified School District will be closed Monday if no agreement is reached over the weekend after negotiations Thursday night failed to produce an agreement on a new contract with the district's teachers' union.
Negotiations fail & sympathy strikes
What we know:
The closure announcement came shortly before the United Administrators of San Francisco said its members would hold a sympathy strike and recommended closing schools if the work stoppage plays out, citing safety standards the union said in a statement would not be met if teachers were not present.
UASF said staff and custodians represented by Service Employees International Union Local 1021 also voted to stage a sympathy strike, which UASF said would further make opening campuses untenable.
"We recognize that school closures — even temporary ones — are disruptive and stressful for families," UASF officials said in a statement. "However, as long as educators remain on the picket line, there is no safe way to operate schools as usual. Schools function because of the collective work of teachers, counselors, social workers, nurses, paraprofessionals, security staff and more."
Superintendent speaks
What they're saying:
After previously saying plans were being made to prevent school closures, SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su said at a Friday morning press conference that schools would close Monday if the teachers' union United Educators of San Francisco rejected the district's final offer.
Su became emotional when announcing the campus closures, appearing to hold back tears at multiple points in her press conference.
She said district leaders ultimately decided there would not be enough support staff on campuses to keep them open safely.
She said the teachers' union had rejected the district's latest offer that Su said increased its offer for dependent health care coverage, yet still fell short of the full coverage the union is seeking. She said UESF was declining to make a counterproposal to the district's last offer and urged it to do so.
District's offer and sticking points
The district's latest offer includes a 6% raise over three years, rather than the 9% over two years the union is asking for, or the 6% over two years an independent arbitration panel recommended. It would cover up to 75% of health care costs at Kaiser or offer teachers $2,000 a month for their own health care expenditures.
Fully covering health insurance for dependents also remained one of the biggest points of disagreement between the two sides. Hard caps on class sizes and the union's demands to alleviate the workload of special education teachers by hiring more and changing the way their workload is assigned were also areas of disagreement.
The district said the teachers' union did not show up to a bargaining session the district initiated Friday morning. Both sides said a final sit-down is scheduled for 2 p.m. Saturday.
"There is still time for the district to figure it out and avoid this crisis of their own making," United Educators of San Francisco said in a statement on its website. "We invited them back to the table on Saturday to give them more time to address the urgent crises in our schools. We hope they use this time to create a serious, stabilizing offer."
Su said preparations were being made for curriculums beyond Monday that could include digital work packets for students. She said in her press conference that her goal remained to prevent a work stoppage and disruption to families and students.
"I want families to know how deeply we value our educators and how committed I am to avoiding a strike," Su said. "While I am disappointed that these negotiations did not result in an agreement, my team and I are prepared to continue bargaining through the weekend."
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