In early September, the district told families that it instructed McCoppin’s principal to recruit a new candidate instead, since the teacher he selected couldn’t be released from their current school without a replacement being hired there, per the district and teachers union’s collective bargaining agreement. But parents say their principal told them there were no eligible TK teachers in the district’s hiring pool.

The district said via email that it is actively recruiting teachers for a small number of remaining TK vacancies.

“We have asked them repeatedly: Who’s accountable and what the plan is and how the pool will get bigger, and we just keep being redirected to, ‘The principal will recruit, the principal will recruit,’” Knebel told KQED.

“It’s very flippant and has gotten to a place of being super dismissed and frustrated with what’s happening,” she continued.

In September, McCoppin parents requested a meeting with district and school site staff, and the district’s executive director of schools supporting McCoppin said she, and potentially a human resources representative, would meet with them. But a date was never set, and once October’s long-term sub was in place, Knebel and Zhang said they were told that meeting was no longer necessary.

“We replied, ‘Actually, absolutely we would still like the meeting, that does not negate the need,’” Knebel said. “And then no response. It’s been completely pulled off the table now.”

Throughout October, Knebel has sent district and school staff multiple emails seeking a meeting and more answers, but she has gotten little information and no offer to talk face-to-face.

“I don’t want to send angry emails. I have a full-time job. This is exhausting,” Knebel said. “The goal is really to have a safe, happy learning environment for my kid.”

A district-wide problem

Junipero Serra Elementary and Junipero Serra Annex in Bernal Heights both have TK classes in similar situations, according to parents. Two classes at MEC don’t have permanent teachers.

Parents at MEC, which has also been operating without a principal since the start of the year, met with SFUSD human resources staff for the first time last week. According to Karwande, the district declined earlier meeting requests because they didn’t have any updates.

Parents wrote a letter to the district during the first week of school, calling the conditions in their students’ classrooms “unsafe and unacceptable.” They said there was just one paraeducator bouncing between the school’s three TK classrooms, which required at least four based on student staffing ratios, and the interim principal had to step in to teach one class, while a parent said they led circle time in another.

The San Francisco Unified School District Administrative Offices in San Francisco on April 18, 2025. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

By the end of week one, SFUSD said that it had offered a candidate the principal job and was “fully committed to providing the very best care and quality education to each of the 76 students enrolled at MEC.”

Karwande said most of the paraeducator vacancies have been filled, and the district sent Ms. Katrina and other instructional coaches to support the classrooms, but a permanent principal still hasn’t started. Now, it’s unlikely the remaining two TK vacancies will be filled, she said.

“What has been the most disappointing is feeling like the district is not meeting us where we’re at in the urgency of this situation,” Karwande told KQED.

District spokesperson Laura Dudnick said in a statement that the “positions have been challenging to fill due to statewide shortages of credentialed TK teachers.”