The text messages started flying Friday evening, shortly after the Lowell High School JV baseball team learned that a teachers strike would keep them off their home field. By Monday afternoon, at least 15 of the 18 players had found their way to the West Sunset baseball field, gloves in hand, cleats laced up, and not a school logo in sight.
“If people really want to improve and bond, they definitely will make an effort,” said Otto Huerta-Ortiz, a freshman at Lowell and the team’s third baseman.
The impromptu practice was one of the small acts of self-organization playing out across San Francisco this week as roughly 50,000 students found themselves locked out of classrooms during the city’s first teachers strike in 47 years. United Educators of San Francisco called the work stoppage Monday after nearly a year of stalled contract talks with the San Francisco Unified School District over wages, healthcare benefits, and special-education staffing.
Schools remained closed Wednesday, with no deal in sight.
The strike’s ripple effects reach well beyond the classroom — into the lives of student-athletes, theater kids, and others participating in extracurricular activities.
Huerta-Ortiz said the coach told the team Friday that practices would be suspended for the duration of the strike. The captains took matters into their own hands, organizing practice through a group text chain.
They chose West Sunset, an off-campus diamond where they wouldn’t risk running afoul of rules tied to the work stoppage. They dressed in plain athletic clothes, leaving behind anything bearing the school’s name.
“We didn’t really know if you could get in trouble for that or not,” Huerta-Ortiz said. “So we aimed to not show any uniform.”
For about 90 minutes, the players stretched, warmed up with catch, then ran through situational drills: ground balls, pop-ups, infield-outfield work. They focused on what Huerta-Ortiz called “game sense.” And the Lowell team wasn’t alone: Players from Abraham Lincoln High School were there too, sharing the diamond.
The JV squad hasn’t played a game yet, but Huerta-Ortiz said the team feels ahead of some competitors. For them, as long as there’s a field, a group chat, and enough players willing to show up, the work continues.
“We’re all getting there however we can,” he said.
The show must go on
Lowell High School senior Samantha Gangitano first heard about the possibility of a strike two weeks ago.
Last week, her teacher and theater director told her and other participants in the spring production of the musical “Little Shop of Horrors” that they would have to take on more responsibility.
Gangitano is the head stage manager. Her typical tasks for a show are a laundry list of communication, logistics, notes on costumes and props, and production meetings. The strike has meant that she has added a few more; namely, finding locations to rehearse for the March show while the campus is closed.
The students took advantage of Merced Manor Reservoir’s flat expanse on Monday and Tuesday. Other school clubs displaced by the strike were also using the space, creating a strange scene of overlapping extracurriculars.
Then the rain started.
Forced to pivot, Gangitano called a family friend to allow the high schoolers access to a San Francisco State University library to practice their dances and staging indoors.
“We’ve gone through our ups and downs, and our director chose this show to give tech students a chance to shine, to do something big and outrageous,” Gangitano said. “Having our progress halted is sad. I support the teachers, of course, but having to figure this out is kind of scary.”
As part of Lowell’s production, the students are building a series of four plant puppets. Members of the production staff took home three of them to complete. The fourth — and largest — is inaccessible on campus, along with the majority of the set and the power tools necessary to construct it.
Gangitano has worked on eight shows at Lowell, and this is her last before graduating. With the director, technical director, and music director — all teachers — out of commission during the strike, Gangitano and the 70-odd other students from the cast and crew are learning the fundamental rule of theater: The show must go on.
“There’s a small part of me that’s really proud of us. Actually, it’s not a small part,” Gangitano said. “It’s a crappy situation all around, but I’m really proud we’ve been able to keep it going.”
Lowell High School students are planning a production of “Little Shop of Horrors” in March. | Source: Courtesy of Lowell High School Theater
On a typical week, Lylah Cutler would be running lines and blocking scenes inside Lowell High School’s theater, preparing to bring the role of Mrs. Mushnik, owner of a failing flower shop, to life. Instead, the junior has been outdoors at the Merced Manor Reservoir, marking stage dimensions with tape on the ground and competing for acoustic space with a drum corps rehearsing nearby.
“It’s obviously not the same as having a physical space to work with,” Cutler said.
The contingency plan wasn’t entirely ad hoc. Cutler said the drama teacher, anticipating that a strike could extend beyond a day, recorded an eight-minute instructional video before the walkout began, laying out a week’s worth of guidance for students to follow on their own.
Cutler said the sessions have actually been less stressful than normal rehearsals — not because the work is easier but because there’s no pile of homework waiting at the end of the day.
“We miss the purpose that school provided,” she said. “It has felt empty not having something to do every single day. At the same time, it’s freeing to have a week where we don’t have to deal with the stress of assignments.”
For juniors, that stress is considerable. Cutler said she is in the thick of SAT preparation and college planning. Course requests for senior year opened last week and are due Wednesday. But students have had no access to school counselors for guidance.
The last time Cutler experienced anything like a prolonged school closure was during the early days of the Covid pandemic, when she was in middle school.
“With Covid, we assumed we were just having two weeks off,” she noted. “Now we’re unsure when we’ll go back to school and how long this strike will take.”
For now, Cutler and her castmates are focused on what they can control. The tape on the ground isn’t a real stage. The reservoir isn’t a theater. But the show, whenever and wherever it goes up, will be ready.
“I would say it’s still fun,” she said.