The first San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) strike in nearly 50 years ended Friday, Feb. 13, having lasted for four days. The new $183 million agreement includes some essential demands made by the union representing San Francisco’s teachers, the United Educators of San Francisco (UESF). The major demands included increased compensation packages, fully funded health care benefits, and relief for special educators. In response to the strike’s conclusion and the tentative agreement, Jordan Lee, a marine biology teacher at George Washington High School, told me, “I think it’s sort of kind of the bare minimum of what we should have gotten, but I’m glad the strike is over because I can see my students now.”
Mr. Lee mentioned his relief that health care for SFUSD teachers will now be fully funded and noted the importance of the caseload reduction for paraeducators, who supervise special education students, comprising 14 percent of the district’s student population. According to the SFUSD press release, paraeducators providing specialized medical services will receive a 5 percent ongoing salary increase in addition to the 8.5 percent all classified employees will receive over the next two years.
For Mr. Lee, the stress placed on paraeducators was a major motive in his support of the UESF strike. He described their immense caseload and responsibilities, leading to an overwhelmed special education staff. “The current caseload for our special educators is very high… they teach classes for special education students… they mentor them, they fill out all the legal paperwork for them. They also talk to the families and hold meetings every year and provide progress reports to the family.”
The overexhaustion of paraeducators also places added barriers on Mr. Lee and other general education teachers’ ability to educate special needs students. “We want to support our students, especially the ones with special needs, as much as we can. And when we reach out to these teachers, they often don’t have time to talk to us, or they have too many students to know who [we’re] talking about. It’s just a constant struggle.”
Affordability was another focal point in the bargaining process. The cost of living in San Francisco is notoriously high, averaging about $194,278 a year for a family of four, with two working adults and two children, almost twice the national average. The salary of public school teachers in the city does not come close to an affordable wage, averaging about $103,472. Consequently, teachers’ salaries are also uniquely low compared to other city-employed workers, and their starting salaries of about $79,468 to $85,381 make living in San Francisco next to impossible.
The average base salary for SFUSD teachers is lower than that of other city workers. Source: Mission Local
Evidently, this gap in the city’s cost of living and its willingness to pay educators has negatively affected schools’ ability to retain teachers. According to Mr. Lee, in recent years, “there were some teachers who had left the district because they just weren’t getting paid enough. They either went to different districts or private schools, to be able to get paid more to live in this area.”
This loss of qualified teachers has contributed to the substantial understaffing of SFUSD schools, a struggle that the district has been dealing with for several years. In May 2025, UESF published a staffing crisis update, noting the district’s more than 400 vacancies. Understaffing inhibits teachers from providing the best possible education to public school students, the majority of whom are considered underserved. According to 2025-26 reports, in a district of about 50,000 students, 53.9 percent of SFUSD students are considered socioeconomically disadvantaged, and 25.6 percent are English learners. Additionally, over 3 percent of SFUSD students are foster youth or homeless, about 1,600 students.
These vulnerable students are impacted the most by the district’s staffing crisis and the inability of overwhelmed teachers to be fully attentive to student needs. They are also the most numerous students in SFUSD, meaning the district is failing to provide sufficient support to most of its students.
The strike left some of these same students and their families strained as they struggled to find affordable child care during the four days schools were shut down. Mr. Lee told me, “I heard about… some parents really struggling through the strike, trying to find child care. They’re paying lots of money to have somebody take care of their kids while they go to work, and that is a big burden, especially [for] those who are lower income.”
However, the blame game that occurred leading up to the announcement of school closures centered on SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su. Su has faced significant criticism, especially from educators in the district, for delayed action on the issue of teachers’ pay, leaving educators without a contract for more than 10 months preceding the strike. Her attempts to relate to the teacher’s financial struggles have also been widely criticized, given her $385,000 annual salary, which is more than five times the salary of a tenured teacher in SFUSD. Reporters have questioned her self-proclaimed commitment to the public education system, given her children’s current placement in private schools.
Educators protest Su’s negotiation tactics during the strike. Image Source: The SF Standard
Mr. Lee also expressed discontent with Su’s communication with SFUSD parents. “I think what kind of pushed me over the edge was the consistent emails from our superintendent, Maria Su, every day to parents and students, just pushing this narrative that the union wasn’t bargaining in good faith, and they weren’t at the bargaining table. And it was just an outright lie… not truthful and omitting a lot of things.”
This inability of SFUSD to adequately support the needs of all its students, particularly those who are underserved, is fundamentally due to the daily stress and pressure placed on the district’s educators. According to the National Library of Medicine, school quality is an essential predictor of student achievement, specifically teacher quality and class size. SFUSD’s staffing crisis and subpar pay have placed its teachers in a demanding and stressful position, contributing to the unpreparedness of students for life after high school. In the 2023-24 year, around 57.4 percent of the district’s students were deemed ready for college. While this number was higher at schools like GWHS, where Mr. Lee works, it was far lower at further underserved schools, with Downtown High having just 2.7 percent of its 113 graduating seniors prepared for college.
Mr. Lee says his favorite part of teaching is inspiring high schoolers to pursue a postsecondary education in his subject. “[With high school students] I can actually change the trajectory of their career path in just a couple of years… It’s really interesting and heartwarming to see some of my students not having any particular interest in anything [in school], and then suddenly start being interested in the natural sciences and go into it.”
While preparing students for a successful future is the goal of Mr. Lee, as well as many other public educators, that goal becomes increasingly more difficult when teachers are overworked and experience affordability barriers that prevent them from even living in the city where they work. Before the city can address the low college-readiness rates of its public school students, the lack of support for educators in SFUSD needs to be addressed. The strike was about more than just pay; it was about supporting staff who can provide a better learning experience and growth opportunities for San Francisco’s most underserved students.
Featured Image Source: KQED