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What’s Actually Happening In SFUSD Right Now
San Francisco’s public schools are closed because the teachers union and the district couldn’t reach a contract deal, and the union called a strike. Roughly 50,000 students are out of class across about 120 school sites — a citywide disruption that lands squarely on working families.
The United Educators of San Francisco is striking over pay and benefits, pushing for around a 9% raise over two years and fully funded family health care. The district has offered a smaller increase and a benefits structure it says it can actually afford. Teachers want the district to cover dependent health care in full — not just the employee’s own plan.
And here’s the part that rarely gets said plainly: SFUSD already provides health benefits that are richer than what most of the taxpayers funding the system receive at their own jobs. The district fully covers single coverage and “single plus dependent” plans, and pays most of the premium costs even for family coverage. In much of the private sector, workers pay thousands each year toward family premiums and still face deductibles and copays. The union isn’t asking to catch up to the private sector — it’s asking to go well beyond it.
So the real question isn’t complicated: does SFUSD have the money to make permanent promises like this without blowing up its budget? And if it does, is this the most important spending priority?
The District’s Finances Are A Mess, And Everyone Knows It
Here’s what gets lost in the picket-line messaging: San Francisco Unified is not financially healthy. The district has been under state fiscal oversight and has wrestled with structural deficits for years. This isn’t a one-year problem. It’s a pattern of commitments that outrun dependable revenue. And of course dealing with the costs of prior bad decisions [ [link removed] ] making by state lawmakers.
District projections show tens of millions in shortfalls ahead, with about $102 million in solutions still needed just to keep the books balanced for the 2026–27 school year. That means cuts and painful tradeoffs are already coming. When an organization is facing numbers like that, adding new permanent costs and hoping things improve later isn’t responsible budgeting. It’s a gamble with someone else’s money.
Union leaders point to reserves or one-time funds and say “the money is there.” But one-time dollars don’t support ongoing benefit promises. Restricted funds can’t be casually shifted. And draining reserves to cover raises is a fast way to end up right back in crisis. That may work as negotiating rhetoric, but it doesn’t pass for serious fiscal stewardship.
(It’s worth mentioning that it’s not just the district’s finances that are a mess [ [link removed] ].)
Every Day Of This Strike Has A Price Tag — And Families Don’t Get To Bill The Union
The district estimates that closed schools mean roughly $7 million per day in lost state funding. However you slice the accounting, the strike is burning money the district doesn’t have.
Then there are the costs no spreadsheet captures — parents scrambling for child care, missing work, rearranging schedules, or losing pay altogether. Some families can manage. Many can’t. While the union has raised other bargaining issues, the central fight is about compensation and benefits. Using a strike to press those demands shifts the burden onto everyone else.
Oh, and now it turns out that striking teachers are asking parents NOT to homeschool ppl I’m MM MP kids [ [link removed] ] - ostensibly as a way to support the strike. You cannot make this stuff up.
The Bay Area Private Sector Isn’t Exactly Thriving Either
What makes the union’s posture feel especially out of step is the broader economy. The Bay Area private sector — the tax base that ultimately funds public services — isn’t in a boom cycle where everyone is sharing in growth. It’s an economy where even the tech giants are trimming.
In just the past few weeks, several major employers with Bay Area roots have announced significant layoffs. Workday cut hundreds of jobs as it restructured. Salesforce has trimmed roles while shifting resources toward AI. Amazon reduced corporate staff across California, including the Bay Area. Pinterest eliminated hundreds of positions as it reorganized. Autodesk has also announced large job cuts, with impacts in San Francisco. There are many more examples.
Step back, and the picture still isn’t strong. Regional job growth has been sluggish, and San Francisco employment remains below pre-pandemic levels in key sectors. Hiring is cautious. Raises happen, but they aren’t the broad windfalls seen in earlier tech booms. Many households right now are focused on holding steady, not getting ahead.
In that environment, most private-sector workers with health insurance still pay a meaningful share of family premiums and face deductibles or copays. Fully employer-paid family coverage with minimal out-of-pocket costs is not standard. It’s a premium benefit.
What’s The Union’s Story, Exactly?
Here’s the pattern that frustrates taxpayers: when times are good, public employee unions argue government should “share the prosperity.” When times are tight, they argue their members need raises and richer benefits because they’re struggling.
There never seems to be a season when the answer isn’t “more.”
That mindset doesn’t reflect the economic ups and downs everyone else lives with. It reflects a system where public employees are largely insulated from them.
So, Does It Matter?
Let’s be honest about the moment. With SFUSD facing major structural deficits and planning deep cuts just to stay solvent, it may not make sense to be offering raises at all (let alone asking employees to take some reductions). In a shaky economy, where private-sector workers are dealing with layoffs, hiring freezes, and uncertain pay, the idea that public employees should automatically come out ahead deserves scrutiny.
What makes this strike especially hard to defend is who pays the price. Not negotiators. Not union leadership. Students do — kids who lose classroom time, fall further behind, miss meals, miss counseling, miss stability. Lost instructional time is hardest to make up for low-income students who already struggle academically. A union that says it champions public education has decided that richer benefits are worth shutting down schools in a financially strained district while families scramble.
And it points to a larger problem. When a public system operates without real competition, the incentives tilt toward the adults who work in it rather than the families who depend on it. A structure that leaves parents with few alternatives makes it easier to use school closures as leverage. That imbalance of power — not just this contract dispute — is what allows situations like this to happen in the first place.
Below the paywall are three more great (and disturbing cartoons) about this strike…...

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