About 6,000 public schoolteachers in San Francisco went on strike on Monday, the first public schoolteachers strike in the city in nearly 50 years.
The strike comes after teachers and the district failed to reach an agreement over higher wages, health benefits and more resources for special needs students. The San Francisco Unified School District closed all its 120 schools and said it would offer independent study to some of the district’s 50,000 students.
“We will continue to stand together until we win the schools our students deserve and the contracts our members deserve,” Cassondra Curiel, president of the United Educators of San Francisco, said at a Monday morning news conference.
Teachers with the union were joining the picket line after last-ditch negotiations over the weekend failed to reach a new contract. Daniel Lurie, the city’s mayor, and Nancy Pelosi,a US representative of California, had urged the two sides to keep talking rather than shut down schools.
Union leaders planned to hold a news conference on Monday morning about the strike and an afternoon rally was planned at San Francisco City Hall. Negotiations were scheduled to resume at midday on Monday.
The union and the district have been negotiating for nearly a year, with teachers demanding fully funded family healthcare, salary raises and the filling of vacant positions impacting special education and services.
The teachers also want the district to enact policies to support homeless and immigrant students and families.
Teachers and the district have already reached an agreement on stronger sanctuary policies, but they remain far apart on wages.
The union is asking for a 9% raise over two years. SFUSD, which faces a $100m deficit and is under state oversight because of a longstanding financial crisis, said it could not afford those hikes. The teachers say the money could come from reserve funds that could be directed back to classrooms and school sites.
Officials have countered with a 6% wage increase paid over three years. On Friday, Maria Su, superintendent of the San Francisco Unified School District, said the offer also includes bonuses for all employees if there is a surplus by the 2027-28 school year.
A report by a neutral fact-finding panel released last week recommended a compromise of a 6% increase over two years, largely siding with the district’s arguments that it is financially constrained.
The union said San Francisco teachers receive some of the lowest contributions to their healthcare costs in the Bay Area, pushing many to leave. Su said the district offered two options: the district paying 75% of family health coverage at Kaiser or offering an annual allowance of $24,000 for teachers to choose their healthcare plan.
Lurie, who helped broker an agreement that ended a hotel workers union strike after he was elected and before taking office, said that the city agencies were coordinating with the district on how to offer support to children and their families.
“I know everyone participating in these negotiations is committed to schools where students thrive and our educators feel truly supported, and I will continue working to ensure that,” Lurie said in a social media post on Sunday.
The last time teachers walked out, in 1979, it was more than six weeks before classes resumed, Mission Local reported.
