San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) faculty went on strike from Feb. 7 to 12, for the first time since 1979. On behalf of all 8,929 SFUSD employees, the United Educators of San Francisco (UESF) union demanded increased salaries, full health care coverage for educators and their dependents, lowered workloads for special education teachers, protection of programs for unhoused families, and sanctuary protections against Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
District and union representatives negotiated for more than 10 months before educators went on strike. After long days of negotiations during the strike, the union reached an agreement that satisfied many of their goals.
During the strike, members of the district and union negotiation teams negotiated well past midnight on multiple occasions. As school was canceled for more than 50,000 SFUSD students, many families scrambled to find childcare. Some after-school programs opened their doors all day to kids involved in their programs.
Other parents — including Director of Logistics Drea Scally, who has two students at Alice Fong Yu Alternative School (K-8) — brought their kids to join teachers at the picket lines. “I really hope that [my kids] see how organizing … and supporting the community is so important,” Scally said. “I think it’s really great for them to see the teachers standing together to ask for what they need.”
Though students paused traditional classroom learning, many saw the strike as an educational opportunity. “I hope that [students] learn something about the power of organization and the power of unions. Union membership is at the lowest it’s been in decades,” said Tim Simpson, Claire Lilienthal Alternative K-8 School kindergarten teacher, in an interview with The Urban Legend. “I think it’s because a lot of people don’t really understand the importance of unions, so hopefully kids will see that they are important, and that they can achieve results.”
Student participation has been helpful to union goals in previous strikes. Math teacher Randy Li worked in the Oakland School District, where he participated in a strike in 2019. “One of the biggest factors that help[ed] the teachers win more concessions was the fact that students were out on the picket lines with teachers. A lot of students were speaking at rallies and talking about how … [they] deserve better as students,’” Li said.
Student speakers helped refocus the strike negotiations onto their own learning. “It’s one thing to debate numbers on a spreadsheet or something, but to say that … these kids feel like they’re not getting what they need — we all want kids to get what they need,” Li said.
One of the main sticking points in these negotiations was the city’s budget. According to an SFUSD budget explainer video, the district’s funding comes primarily from state property and income taxes. SFUSD is one of seven school districts under state supervision due to its $102 million budget deficit.
When schools lack sufficient funding, it often falls to teachers and parents to purchase classroom supplies. “It gets in the way of learning. The teachers are struggling too — it’s not their fault whatsoever. Teachers shouldn’t have to have parents in the class buy their school supplies for them, but they also shouldn’t have to buy their school supplies with their own money,” said Lily Mitchiner ’26, who attended New Traditions Elementary School and Roosevelt Middle School.
The state gives school districts money based on student enrollment and attendance. San Francisco has particularly high private school attendance, with nearly one-third of kids from kindergarten to 12th grade attending private schools, according to KQED.
“If all of the parents who sent their kids to private school [instead sent them] to public school, then the resources would just be so much better for everyone. There’d be more … energy and time and money,” said health teacher Jenn Epstein, who previously taught at George Washington High School and has a child in an SFUSD high school.
As U.S. Census data indicates that more students are leaving the state’s public school system and SFUSD revises its budget, the district must figure out a way to stay afloat. When Superintendent Maria Su spoke about the agreement in an interview with Mission Local, she said the district may have to lay off teachers in the future to fund school programs and teachers’ increased salaries.
Some people say the district should look to teacher pensions, Su’s $385,000 salary or other city departments’ higher salaries for more money.
“[SFUSD] still has a budget crisis and they just lost another [$]30 million in state attendance funding from the 4 days of strike,” Li wrote in an email interview. “Until the overall funding puzzle gets solved, nothing is truly fixed or safe long term.”
Though the union requested 9% raises for certificated employees (e.g. teachers, administrators) and 14.5% raises for classified employees (e.g. office staff, custodians, bus drivers, and paraprofessionals — such as instructional and security aides, room monitors, and substitutes), the new agreement gives each group 5% and 8.5% raises, respectively, over the next two years.
According to a Mission Local article, the average SFUSD teacher makes $103,472 a year, though this figure varies based on the teacher’s experience and education level. This average is more than $20,000 less than many other city employees — such as nurses, police officers and firefighters — make annually.
A report from the Teacher Salary Project said a single San Franciscan needs to earn more than $131,000 — almost $30,000 more than the average SFUSD teacher makes — each year to live comfortably in the city.
“I’ve been teaching for 14 years. I make a decent amount of money but I can’t live on my own — I have to have a roommate,” Simpson said. “I think as a grown person I should be able to at least afford a studio [apartment]. And … I have a master’s degree, so I should be compensated for that.”
Due to high housing prices in San Francisco, many teachers live outside of the city and face long commutes to get to their workplaces or work multiple jobs. This is especially common among classified staff.
“Our classified staff … are underpaid big-time. They just can’t live here,” Simpson said. “On top of working at school all day, [they] work in the after-school and before-school program to make ends meet.”
The union did not achieve the full salary increase they hoped for. They hoped to cover the expected cost-of-living and inflation rates, but the raise for certified employees will not.
“There’s this give-and-take that goes on with these negotiations,” said Spanish teacher Raina Mast, parent to two kids at New Traditions Creative Arts Elementary School and one at Lowell High School. “The raise isn’t as high as they were shooting for. … But because [SFUSD is] covering 100% [of] health care, it makes up for that.”
In their final day of negotiations, UESF accomplished one of their main goals: fully funded healthcare for educators and their families. Beginning Jan. 1, 2027, SFUSD will provide fully subsidized healthcare for teachers, with meaningful relief for 2026 healthcare costs.
Prior to this agreement, UESF said the school district had some of the lowest contributions to health care among Bay Area school districts. “When you’re considering having a family in San Francisco, and you have the income of an SFUSD teacher, it’s not clear how that math works,” said history teacher Ruthann Betkey, who taught at Mission High School for four years. “What [the district needs] to do is not allow having children to create too many more expenses, and the way to do that is to fully cover children’s health care.”
SFUSD and UESF’s new contract also specifies how many students each special education teacher can work with. Special education teachers are the first point of contact when teachers suspect a student might need accommodations, and they work to support students with disabilities.
“It’s really important … that we have a reasonable number of cases per special education teacher. … When that doesn’t happen and the special education teachers are overworked, the students are not receiving the support that they need,” Betkey said. “Students who are also integrated into general ed classrooms can also … be disruptive to the rest of the environment … if they’re not receiving the support that they need.”
The successes UESF achieved in their negotiations send a larger message to the country. “Pay attention to this movement of the working class of people. We’re not backing down — this is how you organize, this is how you get it done,” Mast said. “It was just so fulfilling that it worked. It was a long week, but it was really worth it.”