Mayor Daniel Lurie and Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi on Sunday made 11th-hour appeals for San Francisco teachers and the school district to come to an agreement, less than 24 hours before a strike is set to begin and close schools citywide.
Barring that, both asked for a 72-hour delay of Monday’s strike date — and were spurned.
Lurie issued a statement a little after 1 p.m. asking for “three additional days for the conversations to continue” between the teachers union and the school district. He urged both sides to continue negotiations on Sunday “to reach an agreement” that both “supports our hardworking educators” and ensures “fiscal stability” for the district.
Pelosi issued her own statement echoing Lurie’s call: “I support the Mayor’s ask that there be three additional days for conversations to continue.” State Sen. Scott Wiener did the same.
The teachers union, in a press conference held near the same time, said it had not received an acceptable proposal yet from the San Francisco Unified School District and that, until it did, the walkout would move forward as planned.
“We will be going on strike on Monday absent a signed tentative agreement,” said Cassondra Curiel, president of the United Educators of San Francisco.
Schools are set to close across the city on Monday morning, and teachers plan to picket their worksites. The two sides have been in talks since March and negotiated on Saturday from 11 a.m. to almost 10 p.m.
There was “some movement” from the district yesterday, Curiel said, namely an “important win” to insert protections for undocumented students into the union contract.
But negotiations “didn’t go far enough,” she added. “We have made it very clear that our demands are for fully-funded family healthcare, for educators improvements to special education, and salary increases that do not come at the cost of concessions or takeaways.”
The union passed an offer to the district at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Curiel said, and received a counteroffer at 8:10 p.m. Union officials are “working hard” to send a response, but need more information from the district to do so, Curiel said.
Curiel said bargaining may continue Sunday if the union receives that information.
“We need to see there’s serious movement,” she said. “We’ll be on strike on Monday without an agreement.”
Superintendent Maria Su, for her part, sent a statement Sunday morning saying she was “deeply frustrated and disheartened” not to reach an agreement the prior night. After missing the prior session, Su was present during Saturday’s negotiations alongside the district’s bargaining team.
Su said she was “ready to work on reaching a full agreement” and to “return to the bargaining table” on Sunday.