Frank Lara, the vice president of SFUSD’s teachers union, called the announcement a victory and commended the district for its work to balance the budget, but he emphasized that there is still work to be done. Before children return to campuses next fall, he said, the district will have to replace classroom teachers taking the voluntary buyout as well as others who could announce their resignations this summer.
“We still have a lot of work to do to fully staff classrooms, and we very much are in collaboration with the district to get that done,” he told KQED.
A spokesperson for SFUSD said the exact number of classroom vacancies throughout the district’s 120 campuses fluctuates significantly, but each year, a couple of hundred teachers often leave their roles.
A hiring freeze has limited the district’s ability to make staffing decisions without state approval for the last year, but according to a spokesperson, it’s been approved to hire 77 additional classroom teachers, on top of the 162 hires it was granted to fill open positions earlier this month.
Lara said SFUSD’s hiring allowance is enough to offer every eligible temporary teacher in the district a new contract for next year.
“Right now, principals have a list of all these individuals and principals are calling these folks to get into the classroom and offering them contracts,” Lara said.
He’s more worried that some schools will be unable to fill classroom openings, especially if the number grows.
“Once they end the school year, [teachers] often announce in their email threads to their school community that they’re leaving, so we expect that number to increase while the pool of candidates will decrease,” Lara said. “We’re not out of the woodwork yet in terms of staffing, but at least everybody now knows what the rules are.”
