Frustrated parents. Furious employers. Desperate educators. Bored and listless kids.\u00a0<\/p>\n
A looming teachers strike \u2014 the first potential work stoppage by San Francisco educators since 1979 \u2014 will stir up a whirlwind of emotions and unleash torrents of blame. And if history is any precedent, it\u2019ll be Mayor Daniel Lurie who takes the most heat \u2014 even though he has little to do with running the San Francisco Unified School District and little say over how its negotiations with the United Educators of San Francisco unfold.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are seeing and hearing a lot of families saying, \u2018Hey, let\u2019s ask the mayor to do something,\u2019\u201d said Meredith Dodson, executive director of the San Francisco Parents Coalition, whose newsletter reaches roughly 10,000 families. When citizens feel helpless, calling the mayor\u2019s office is \u201cthe only local solution that makes sense,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
SFUSD is a state-funded entity, overseen by an elected Board of Education, a local superintendent, and a state superintendent. On a day-to-day basis, Gov. Gavin Newsom has more to do with the district\u2019s financial woes than the mayor does. This is why the 6,000-member United Educators of San Francisco joined more than a dozen educators unions in a statewide campaign called \u201cWe Can\u2019t Wait (opens in new tab)<\/a>,\u201d demanding more state funding.<\/p>\n Yet mayors wield tremendous soft power \u2014 especially those, like Lurie, who have stratospheric polling numbers. According to city education and labor experts, San Francisco\u2019s mayor can exercise his influence over the school system at will.\u00a0<\/p>\n So far, he hasn\u2019t.\u00a0<\/p>\n In public remarks on the stymied negotiations between SFUSD and the union, Lurie has all but wiped his hands of responsibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t run the schools. It\u2019s a separately elected Board of Education, and [SFUSD Superintendent] Maria Su is an employee of the district,\u201d he told KQED (opens in new tab)<\/a> Jan. 21. \u201cIf the superintendent asks us to come in and talk, we want that to get settled. But we haven\u2019t gotten involved yet.\u201d<\/p>\n That stance probably won\u2019t hold water with parents, said John Logan, labor studies chair at San Francisco State University. Other strikes have shown that families often look to their city government for resolution.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just not realistic to say, \u2018We\u2019re not involved,\u2019\u201d Logan said. \u201cYou haven\u2019t had a school teachers strike in almost 50 years. It\u2019s a huge, huge deal.\u201d<\/p>\n Behind the scenes, local officials are lobbying the state to invest more in educators. In a mid-December letter to Newsom, SFUSD\u2019s Su joined leaders of other school districts in asking for funding increases so they could pay teachers more, provide relief for immigrant students, and increase funding for students with special needs. Those issues top UESF\u2019s list<\/a> at the bargaining table.<\/p>\n Similarly, Supervisor Myrna Melgar this week introduced a resolution putting the city on record (opens in new tab)<\/a> in support of the \u201cWe Can\u2019t Wait\u201d campaign, demanding that Newsom and the state Legislature increase funding for educators.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are things the city can do to support the school district and the teachers around their demands for training, sanctuary-city policies, and legal defense, and also on housing and workforce demands,\u201d Melgar said.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, the supervisor is not just waiting for the state to come to the rescue. \u201cI think the mayor could step in,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n He\u2019s done so on behalf of unions before. In December 2024, on the cusp of assuming office, Lurie was credited<\/a> with helping end a hotel workers strike by personally calling Marriott\u2019s owners to help Unite Here Local 2 and hotel management reach a bargaining agreement.<\/p>\n His predecessors more readily jumped into the fray on SFUSD issues.\u00a0<\/p>\n Mayor London Breed, a Galileo High School graduate, placed two propositions on the city ballot to raise teachers\u2019 salaries, including Proposition J in 2020 (opens in new tab)<\/a>. During her tenure, the city built housing for teachers to try to stem the tide of fleeing district workers. More than 20 years ago, under (opens in new tab)<\/a> Mayor Newsom, the city established the Public Education Enrichment Fund (opens in new tab)<\/a>, which annually disburses roughly $100 million to the school district from city coffers.<\/p>\n There\u2019s also precedent for mayors intervening to settle educators strikes.\u00a0<\/p>\n The late Dianne Feinstein waded into the last strike in 1979. The six-week stoppage grew violent, with substitute teachers being brought in as scabs and educators slashing tires and setting fires. As negotiations dragged on, Feinstein pushed for a seat at the table. She encouraged the district to rehire laid-off teachers and rebutted the claims of her opponent for reelection, Quentin Kopp, who maintained that the district had more money than it was letting on to pay salaries.\u00a0<\/p>\n Kopp, 97, said there\u2019s ample reason to think today\u2019s San Franciscans will hold their mayor accountable, perhaps even more than in Feinstein\u2019s heyday.<\/p>\n \u201cNow, school parents seem to rely more on City Hall than they did more than 40 years ago. Nobody seems to pay attention to the Board of Education,\u201d Kopp said. \u201cI can\u2019t even tell you who\u2019s on it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frustrated parents. Furious employers. Desperate educators. 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