San Francisco Unified School District staff rally to speak out on staff shortages
San Francisco Unified School District staff rallied on Tuesday to speak out on staffing shortages.
Yajaira Cuapio said the school year at SFUSD has gotten off to a rough start.
"This year, we were expecting to be fully staffed. We were expecting to welcome more than ten new school social workers, and we were only able to welcome four," said Cuapio.
She said several schools have started off the year without critical support staff like counselors, nurses, social workers and psychologists.
They said the reason is due to the California Department of Education's oversight of the district's budget and personnel creating an on boarding process that takes a long time to get employees approved and in the classroom.
She said she knows several people caught up in the bureaucracy including one counselor who was new to the district.
"He completed his onboarding, his fingerprinting, he got his letter, he got his contract, even showed up to work for one day, and in less than a day he was asked to go back home," said Cuapio.
To show their displeasure with the current process, union members gathered in front of the district office to protest.
Cassondra Curiel is the president of United Educators of San Francisco.
"We can't be patient about this any longer. Our students deserve fully staffed schools on the first day and that's what we expect and we hope by bringing attention to it now, we won't be in this position this time next year," said Curiel.
A spokesperson for the CDE told KPIX the role of the state is to ensure that every staff member hired by the district can actually be paid through the entire school year.
SFUSD has been working in a deficit for years.
The state came in two years ago to help the district balance its budget but after a lack of real improvement, the state stepped in even more this past spring with fiscal advisors who the district says have the power to directly engage in any district operation deemed counter to fiscal stability.
KPIX reached out to the district for comment on the union's protests.
They said they continue to work collaboratively with the fiscal advisors and labor partners to hire for vacant positions and say the escalated state oversight shows the need to eliminate deficit spending.
Still, Cuapio wonders what all that really means when it comes to actually getting support staff in the classroom.
"It's really disheartening. It definitely makes me really upset. I know that my supervisors and my managers are really stressed out for sure because we were really excited to have a year of being fully staffed, at least when it came to school social workers," said Cuapio.
The CDE said it is currently prioritizing certain support staff hires within the district, trying to get people into the classroom as soon as possible.