By  Shridavi Raghavan and Ivy Thai

San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) educators are in the process of negotiating a new contract for the next school year to increase pay and improve working conditions. 

Cassondra Curiel, President of the United Educators of San Francisco (UESF), states, “The union’s goal is to get meaningful and equitable raises for every member.”

In year one, UESF’s proposal is a salary increase of $12k for certificated educators, a $30 per hour minimum for classified educators (educators who do not have a teaching credential), and an 8% increase to the hourly rate for those classified employees above this rate. In year two, there is a proposed additional 8% salary increase for certificated educators and an 8% increase in the hourly rate for all classified employees. 

Additionally, new stipends and better working conditions for social workers, wellness counselors, nurses, and the preservation of the core substitute program with wage increases are also part of the proposed contract. 

For classified employees, a longevity increase includes raises for five, ten, 15, and 20 years of service with a matching percentage raise. 

Furthermore, they propose adding six floating holidays to bring the total to ten floating holidays for the year, and a $2,500 stipend for classified members in hard-to-fill positions and/or high-potential schools.

Lincoln paraeducator, Karen Warren, challenges the proposal by arguing, “Some paraeducators have 30 years in, so why stop at the 20% for [the] 20 years mark? Let's have 25% for 25 years and so forth. It took me twenty years to make $30 per hour, but I understand the need for new hires to make a living wage.”

Another aspect of the proposal involves limiting class sizes with students who have an Individual Education Plan (IEP) or require more support to allow teachers to address students who need more attention. In addition, they propose the revival of Advanced Placement (AP) Preparation Periods and demand overall better working conditions.

According to SFUSD’s released Budget, SFUSD had a total operating budget of $1.1 billion this school year. 

Curiel, regarding how the state legislature should contribute to this increase, states, “The root cause of our problem is how the federal and state governments fund public education. For the California state legislature to send more money to us, we need to do more. We think that the federal government should be spending more money on books instead of bullets.”

Under the current contract, the range of pay for a certified teacher is approximately $70k to $115k, based on credential level and number of semester units completed. Moreover, according to Curiel, 30% of certificated teachers are paid $75k or less. 

On average, classified employees make $17/hour, or $36k-38k annually. Additionally, district-wide, 45% of classified educators are Special Education Paraeducators.

Both groups have large percentages of employees with five or fewer years of SFUSD experience, so in addition to their low pay, these employees do not receive any additional longevity pay increases or benefits at their current experience level in the current contract. 

AP World History teacher, Brenden Furey, described the SFUSD’s failure to retain young teachers as, “a revolving door,” as new teachers are hired but leave frequently.

The proposal is also in light of the state of emergency declared by SFUSD regarding failures in the current payroll system, EMPowerSF. Although some educators have received their long overdue payment, as of April 24th, there remains an overwhelming 1,890 impacted employees, most of whom have been impacted for an average of 170 days (SFUSD EMPowerSF Resolution Dashboard).

Furey expresses, “Not only did this [the EMpower payroll failures] financially hurt some teachers, but also it created an overall atmosphere of low morale among educators across San Francisco.” 

He added that the unresponsiveness of the system and its inability to resolve issues creates a sense of powerlessness, and “a feeling that [one’s] employer does not value their labor.”

UESF believes the current contract is a major contributor to SFUSD’s difficulties in attracting and retaining teachers resulting in educator vacancies. SFUSD stated in a press release, “For the past ten years, both during and before the pandemic, SFUSD’s teacher attrition rate has held steady at 9-10% each year.”

However, Lincoln High School is more impacted by this statistic. There are four permanently unfilled teaching positions at Lincoln, which means four classrooms are unsupervised, and a lack of substitute teachers forces other educators to fill in for subjects they don’t usually teach, resulting in students not being taught at full potential during that class.

The average salary of a certificated SFUSD educator is lower than those of neighboring districts. As stated in district teacher salary statistics gathered by the state of California during the 2018-2019 school year, SFUSD's average salary paid is $75,872; whereas in Marin, the average salary is $101,953. This discrepancy in the salary of SFUSD educators compared to that of surrounding districts is still present.

In 2022, SFUSD made a tentative agreement with UESF to reallocate AP Specialty funding, suspend sabbaticals, and use the Proposition G parcel tax to fund a one-time $2,000 educator bonus. According to the “San Francisco Chronicle,” “The deal would put a one-year pause on funding for Advanced Placement teachers to get an extra preparation period, which costs about $6.5 million annually. It would mean AP teachers would teach five classes a day instead of four, reducing the need for additional teachers to cover the extra classes.” 

This most heavily affected Lincoln and Lowell—two schools with large numbers of AP courses. Additionally, in recent negotiations, SFUSD has put the permanent removal of AP Specialty funding on the table—a condition that was not included in SFUSD’s initial proposal (Sunshine)—as a means for funding the pay increase UESF is proposing. 

Furey voices, “As an AP teacher, I think it is important [they] don’t [revoke] the AP Specialty Funding and AP Prep periods [that we initially had before the pause]. It would be a terrible precedent to take away the benefit of one group of teachers to benefit another. We need to work to expand our benefits for all educators.”

As reported by CNBC, “San Francisco required the highest take-home pay to maintain a comfortable lifestyle at an after-tax salary of over $84,000.” 

The average 75k salary of a certified SFUSD educator is not an adequate income for the cost of living in San Francisco.

Many believe the proposed contract will not provide an adequate raise to meet this benchmark or radically impact an educator’s ability to do so. 

But, as Curiel states, “It’ll be a meaningful and adequate rate in the long run.” 

UESF’s primary focus for the first year of the contract is to increase wages for classified members, specifically paraprofessionals, that are receiving below a living wage in San Francisco.

“My ideal contract would empower teachers to just focus on their teaching. For them to have physical and financial safety so they can [do] their job instead of stressing out all the time and worrying about paying rent, a car fix, etc,” says Roger Michael Lee, Lincoln math teacher of 26 years and former UESF Bargaining Team representative from Lincoln.

Lee continues, “In my situation, because I’ve been doing this for 26 years, what’s happening now is I’m nearing my retirement, and my final pay will determine my retirement. When somebody says, ‘You should take a bit less [money] now,’ I start thinking that means I start taking a little bit less [money] every day for the rest of my life.”

Protests were a result of discontent among UESF members about the current contract. According to the “SF Examiner,” the most recent protest by SFUSD educators was on February 21st when UESF members gathered “ahead of a Board of Education meeting to protest the district’s handling of its faulty EmPower payroll system, staffing shortages, and low wages.” They are pursuing “raises that match inflation and the salaries of their contemporaries in neighboring districts.” 

In March, Los Angeles Unified School District workers went on a three-day strike for the same reasons, which was followed by an immediate wage increase of 30% “for workers who are paid an average of $25,000 a year,” also including a $1,000 bonus for employees who worked during the Pandemic as reported by National Public Radio.

Although this may have been effective for the LA school district, Lee believes this is not a viable option because receiving a minuscule amount of money for teaching is greater than the toll of not getting paid and leaving students without teachers if they go on strike.

Warren stated, regarding the possibility of striking, “There is power in numbers. Ordinary people do extraordinary things when they are gathered in large numbers and agree with each other.”

Lee added that this process requires an immense amount of patience and composure as “It’s hard to agree with someone who isn’t willing to admit that an agreement needs to be made.”

The union is in the process of hearing from the district about their rebuttals. As of April 23rd, the union has presented 16 proposals to the district and received a total of four counter offers from them. 

UESF, the Bargaining Team, and SFUSD educators alike all hope the proposed contract is implemented before the 2023-2024 school year begins to ensure a successful transition.

Curiel concludes, “Our goal ultimately is to make sure we have the kind of stable and secure school that our students deserve—that we deserve to work in.”

Published 5/23/23

By  Rita Deal

Abraham Lincoln High School (ALHS) has had its fair share of fire alarm pulls since the beginning of the school year, but the Lincoln community has experienced a surge in fire alarms going off during the spring semester--both from intentional pulls and the majority because of malfunctioning wires that lead to the triggering of the fire alarms.

The fire alarms have occasionally set off at random, causing disruptions in the learning environment in classes for both students and teachers. Much of ALHS now feels the opposite of panic when the alarms go off, except for the staff trying to stop the fire alarms from ringing when a malfunctioning fire alarm occurs. 

Mia Rossitto, a senior, says, “Fire alarms in response to the so-called fires have been very inconsistent in the sense that fire alarms are going off a lot more often when there aren't fires. It has become a habit for students to assume there isn't an actual fire and that the people in the front office will soon tell them, ‘This is not related to an actual fire. Please stay in your classrooms.’ It has changed our mindset in a way where students don’t panic when they hear a fire alarm, but it is more of a nuisance--especially the mindsets we were used to from elementary and middle school.”

“Yeah, it feels like we are desensitized to it because it happens so often. From a school to student safety standpoint, it's frustrating; whereas we should be taking alarms seriously because it should be an emergency when it does happen,” comments Jordan Loey, the vice principal.

During a fire alarm, as taught from the state required drills, students would have to make their way from their classes outside the perimeter of the building, led by teachers and staff until the coast is clear for them to return and resume classes. 

Now, with the malfunctioning alarms mixed in, it cuts into class time, especially when teachers and students need to decide whether or not it was actually a false alarm. 

This has changed the overall mindset from students and staff going out of their classroom to line up outside of the school, making it more annoying to the point where some teachers say, “Wait a few seconds first” before doing anything else after an alarm goes off.

In regards to intentional alarm pulls by students, concerns from the community were made over the unannounced actions by admin taken to find the people behind the pulls thus far. It can be difficult to tell exactly who did it because of the poor quality of the security cameras at ALHS. 

“There was an alarm pulled. Hallway of kids--all on their phones. I asked, ‘Who did it?’ ‘Loey, we weren’t paying attention. We didn’t see anything.’ It takes a lot of bandwidth for the community to stay together,” explains Loey.

Loey adds, “Alarm pull. There were about 20 people in the hallway. No one can tell me who did it because they were all on their phones. It didn’t really phase them--they were disinterested in what happened. But then, they were like, ‘Fire alarms are really annoying.’ This Special Education teacher, for example, asked, ‘Mr. Loey, what can we do about the alarms? It’s really disruptive, causes harm, and is very triggering to some of my students.”

“If you see something, tell us [admin] and allow us to be more aware of what is going on, so it's not just on one person. Oftentimes, when we say it's on one person, a lot of finger pointing and blame goes around when we are all working towards a solution in service of each and everyone of you--students, staff, support staff, and admin,” says Loey. 

Furthermore, the process for resolving a malfunctioning fire alarm is quite complex.

“If there is a pull station, so if you look directly outside, if someone were to pull that, the fire alarm would go off. Someone who has to go over, put the lever back in, and reset the system. Someone needs to respond to put it back in. Generally, it's pretty quick for the most part if we know where it is. I’m normally the one responding because I'm a fast walker. When the system responds with, ‘system is normal’, that's when we are able to give the clear for people to come back in. What would happen is an alarm would go off, and the city box, the red box outside of the counseling office on Quintara and twenty third, alarm would go off. For the past few weeks, electricians have been coming in, and they fixed it yesterday. So that shouldn't really be a problem anymore is what we [admin] were hoping. In addition to that, all of the pull stations now have glass covers over them, so students shouldn’t be like, ‘I’m walking by. It's exposed. I'm going to pull it. If I need to pull it, I need to break the glass and pull it. A lot of the issues we've been having earlier in the year should be resolved.”

Whenever the alarm would be an issue, Loey puts in a request, and the school district would send an electrician to fix the system.

“I'm generally the point person for fire alarms because I know the building layout well,” responds Loey.’

A person from the district who deals with fire safety in schools, says there was talk of potentially updating the entire system to get rid of pull stations.

“One thing they said is that we could possibly move to an all smoke alarm system. One of the caveats for that to happen is that we would need a sprinkler system in every room. I know the school year is almost over, but for next school year, I think having ASB and our Peer Resources program and our advisories can bring awareness to how triggering fire alarms are if it keeps going off,” says Loey.

According to some people at ALHS, they feel PTSD after a fire alarm goes off. 

“That is not fair to the staff and students, especially those in wheelchairs. I incredibly hope moving forward that when there is an alarm, we do know it's serious. I’m hoping now that both the panels are fixed and that there are glass covers on all of the pulls, this will no longer be the case,” says Loey.

Published 5/23/23

By  Asha Laurent

On April 3, 2023, an adult who was unaffiliated with the Lincoln Community, in an attempt to meet with a teacher, entered the school grounds unannounced. After being asked to leave the premises, they began making threats and became extremely hostile. The person ended up in an altercation with the school security, and the authorities were immediately notified.

The following Friday, April 7, 2023, Abraham Lincoln High School announced that the yearly Spring Rally was to be canceled due to this incident.

Principal Shari Balisi explains that this unaffiliated man “wanted to meet with another adult, I said he's teaching right now, please email him and then I said, okay, I'm requesting your visitors pass back. He just escalated.”

 
Balisi reports, “If it wasn't for my security guard, he would have launched at me. He said a lot of things that concern me, such as, “I'll see you on Friday. The security guard may have been injured.”

With the concern that unaffiliated men would show up again on Friday, knowing an unusual amount of Lincoln staff out on April 7th, Ms. Balisi made the decision to cancel Abraham Lincoln’s annual Spring Rally out of concerns for safety.

Balisi says, “Students may not feel that way, but when it escalates to that point, where I don't feel safe, how am I gonna protect 2000 kids?”   

Balisi reassured families that Abraham Lincoln High School’s safety protocols work to keep the students safe. She adds that the school was pressing charges against the adult involved and that the police were continuing their investigation. 

When asked if the Spring Rally could be rescheduled, Balisi says, “Before the school year ended, last year, we had to submit dates to the district. That date was already approved. We can't say, okay, we didn't have this one[the Spring Rally]. We're not gonna have it here. We don’t want to have what happened before where we were mandated to have school hours in November.[Academic School Hours during Thanksgiving break from 2020 - 2021]”

What makes this different from any other threat in the past is that many teachers were out that day, which raised concerns of safety. Balisi emphasizes the importance of creating an environment where all adults are alert to potential threats, and students feel safe reporting concerns to adults.

Members of the student body, especially the senior class, have been working on the planning of the Spring Rally since they got back from winter break.

Julian Byrns, Abraham Lincoln’s ASB Co-Coordinater describes their reaction to the Spring Rally being canceled after the incident,
“It was just really unfortunate because two weeks before, we had the schedule printed out and it was on. It was hanging in the office when he [the unaffiliated man] showed up. He saw that (the schedule) and then he pointed at it and he made the threat and that's why it became real. So it's unfortunate because [ASB] already planned the entire thing out. ”

Josiah Tom, ALHS’s student core treasurer explains the process that went into planning the Spring Rally this year, “I think a lot of the ideas come from what works and what doesn't work well in the past rallies and events. We have meetings on Wednesdays and Mondays. Monday was mainly brainstorming, and then on Wednesdays we came up with ideas of what we wanted to do for the Spring rally, we drafted those ideas. Then Ms. Sherman and Mr. Byrns, think about what we can execute, what's within our budgets, and what's a feasible range for us as ASB to do things. We base it off of that and then we start working on that.”

Tom then discusses what he was planning for the Spring Rally,
“I personally worked on the teacher dance. I started working with Ms. Palaby and coordinated with teachers because we wanted to do a dance. We wanted to see teachers dance this year. We thought it would increase the students' attendance rate at the rally. Yeah. And that was probably my main job in this rally.”

Byrns remarks “I was practicing my sturdy.”

Another one of Abraham Lincoln’s ASB members, Kailen Shew, the Historian, gives more detail about the planning of the Spring Rally. “The Spring Rally was supposed to be about a bunch of games and just like having fun and kind of like closing off the year. I was in charge of hosting a flag football tournament. So each of us on ASB had different roles. I think some of my other classmates were in charge of water balloons. There was like a telephone game.Then there was like tug of war and we usually have tug of war. We also were planning on doing games, like in the stands because we got feedback that it was really boring when you're just sitting on the stands and stuff. So then we were gonna do games on the stands like beach balls and stuff. We started planning around the beginning of the year.”

Shew expresses disappointment in not being able to see the dance company perform their performances for the Spring Rally. “I just wanna bring attention to the groups that were performing. Like it sucks that they couldn't do the performance they were planning on doing. They worked so hard to perform and practice like I think Koressence and ALDC practice every day after school perfecting their routine, and it just sucks that they didn't have a bigger audience to perform for.”

Stephanie Chen, one of the co-presidents in Abraham Lincoln High School Dance Company says, “ALDC did plan on performing for the Spring Rally. In fact, we started preparing for the Spring Rally in February. Since Unity Assembly (UA) and the original Spring Rally date were close together, the choreographers of Spring Rally pieces (Annie Chen, Carina Rossitto, Phoebe Zhang, Melissa Yan, Princess Aquino, and Lovely Azcona) worked very hard and the team had to manage UA and district performance at the same time. The whole team is very upset about [the] canceling [of] Spring Rally. Many of us are seniors and were excited for our last rally. Unfortunately, we did not get to perform our last piece this year.” 

The school has comprehensive safety plans in place in case of an emergency that many students at Lincoln have most likely practiced. If the unaffiliated man had gone through with his threat the school may have needed to go on Lockdown. In the case of a lockdown, the school would need to remain indoors, for the procedure requires the school and every teacher to lock their doors as students hide out of sight where an intruder could possibly see them. The school's priority remains to ensure the safety of its students, Balisi invites families to reach out to her if they have any questions or concerns.

“I totally get why they canceled it because it is a huge safety concern. It's not like the end of the world, but it's still just like, dang. I wish we had that one last thing,” Shew comments.

Samatha Sherman, the ASB Coordinator, gives her message to the senior class, “I think about the students who didn't get the chance to graduate on stage and the people who spent their full senior year online. I think there are so many opportunities that are missed. However, we've already had a rally [fall rally] where we've played games, gotten to connect, and where you all have taken a panorama picture. There is more fortune there than it has been in the last two and a half years. You all didn't get a chance to do this rally, but there is your life ahead of you, to do rallies, go to parties, go to large events, and that will be fantastic. It's not as if your void of bonding moments, it's just this particular fashion of bonding moment was not available.” 

Published 5/23/23

By  Laish Doris-Wiener

The Mustang Munchies is a program in which special education students deliver food from local restaurants directly to teachers' classrooms every Thursday, for a small delivery fee of $2.99. The program is good for teachers as it allows them to conveniently order food from restaurants without paying an excessively high delivery app fee, and without taking time out of their day to walk to restaurants to pick food up. The program is also very beneficial for the students, both through the valuable life skills they learn, and the funds they receive, which help pay for class field trips, projects, and materials.

David “John” Maske runs the Mustang Munchies out of his class. He began the program last year in October, inspired by a similar program he saw at Balboa High School.

Maske says, “The process begins on Monday right before lunch, when students distribute order slips to teachers from 11:00 AM to 11:45 AM.” 

Students are given a dialogue sheet in which they put their names in a blank space to help introduce themselves to teachers and correctly get their teachers’ orders. This helps students with social anxiety and it allows them to practice communication skills.

Students then make logs for all the orders received, both to keep track of them and to allow students to practice math and organization.

The next step of the process occurs on Wednesday when all the order slips are collected, and students call restaurants, one day in advance to pick the orders up the following day. Maske says, “This is to ensure orders are ready in time.” When students call, they also use a script, which they look at while ordering over the phone.

Then, on Thursday, two hours before lunch, students set out to pick up the food they ordered the day prior. Accompanied by Lincoln seniors, Ken and Raymond, Maske’s class splits up, sending different students to different restaurants based on their needs, as some students are wheelchair-bound, or need aid in walking. 

Sara Falls, a teacher and frequent orderer from the Mustang Munchies says, “I really like that they're engaging with the school in a way that brings awareness to them and is a resource for them to put into practice job skills.” 

She adds, “I think it's really cool. It's a little expensive, but it's been something I’ve been willing to spend money on because I’m like ‘this is a good cause, I want to do it.’”

Maske points out, “The program really helps a lot, not only for the kids, and the classroom, but also for the local restaurants.”

The four restaurants teachers can choose from are Lou's Cafe, King of Thai, Sushi Zen, and Pho Ga. Since the class has a special relationship with the four restaurants, they can easily order from them without confusion.

After students pick up the orders and bring them back to the school, the class separates and organizes the food, ensuring the right items are delivered to the right teachers. The orders are then delivered to classrooms at the beginning of lunch.

Maske says that on average they are getting four orders a week, but in the past few weeks, they have been receiving an increase of ten to 15 orders a week. Maske attributes this to “more teachers realizing the benefits of the program.”

Maske says many teachers use the Mustang Munchies because they “have very little time to go get food at lunch, and delivery apps are much more expensive compared to ordering food from the Mustang Munchies.”

The class uses the money gained from the delivery fee for many things including stamps and envelopes, class project materials, staff appreciation gifts, birthday parties, extra equipment and tools, sensory fidgets, and more.

Maske says, “Students are so excited to go outside because it is like a field trip and they enjoy the exercise.”

Jasmine, a student in Maske’s class, says her favorite part of the Mustang Munchies is “meeting and talking to teachers and delivering food.”

In January of this year, Maske began experimenting with an electronic Google Form in place of knocking on doors in to not disturb teachers during their teaching hours. Currently, they take orders both in-person and through Google Forms.

Finding a job can be a difficult process for many special education students. Another benefit of the program is that students can begin to understand how a job would work enter the real world and begin to make connections. It also allows the students to be active and develop real-world experience with work. 

Future job opportunities for Maske’s students are limited. After graduating from Lincoln, they will attend a transition program in which they learn life skills and how to be independent in life. Maske acknowledges that while some of his students may be able to work in the food delivery business later on, the majority will find it difficult to hold a job in the future. 

However, Maske says, he program is still very helpful for them as all the activities are specially designed to be educational, and to help teach students valuable social and communication skills, which help them to learn to live a more independent life.”

Maske worries about next year as he doesn't know if “the process will still be possible because the school is currently debating when the lunch time will be on Thursdays.” If lunch is scheduled earlier, Maske says his class will “either have to greatly improve our time management skills, or the program might no longer be possible.” This is because “most restaurants open around 11:00 AM, and we can pick up orders at the earliest at 11:30 AM.”

Published 5/23/23