Small Schools Coalition Urges Board of Education to Reject Budget Cuts, Staffing Model & “Strong Schools” Resolution
MEDIA ADVISORY for Thursday, December 11, 2025
San Francisco, CA – On Tuesday, Dec. 16, the Small Schools Coalition is hosting a rally and press conference at the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) headquarters and speaking during public comment at the Board of Education hearing, urging the Board to reject the misleading “Strong Schools” Resolution because it will negatively and disproportionately impact families in Southeast San Francisco. This resolution is being presented as a roadmap to “strong schools,” but reading the text closely reveals that it is actually a school-closures authorization plan, rebranded in softer language.
The Small Schools Coalition is also mobilizing to resist the proposed Staffing Model, which would result in reducing 56 classroom teachers, shifting all high schools to a uniform 6-period day which would limit access to A–G courses, electives, interventions, and language pathways; cutting 45 social workers (only maintaining them at Title I schools; and reductions in counselors, APs, clerks, and T-10 positions (security guards). The proposed 26-27 Staffing Model would remove the very people who build safety, relationships, and academic stability. These are the adults who help prevent crises, not just respond to them. When we remove them, we widen opportunity gaps and deepen racial disparities.
What: Rally and press conference before Board of Education Hearing; mobilization for public comment urging BOE to reject “Strong Schools” resolution.
When: Tuesday, Dec. 16, 4:45 pm: Rally & Press Conference; 6:30–8 pm: Public Comment
Where: SFUSD Headquarters, 555 Franklin St. (@ McAllister)
Who: Small Schools Coalition members, students, parents, educators, and community members will provide testimonies.
“Being visionary means investing in our public schools. Closing schools moves us in the wrong direction. Our public schools are essential to the strength of our families and the health of our communities, and we must ensure they remain valuable assets for San Francisco. Public schools are more than classrooms—they are community anchors and vital resources for the neighborhoods they serve,” said Juana Tello, Executive Director & Co-Founder of 5 Elements Youth Collective, a member of the Small Schools Coalition.
"We urge the Board of Education to reject the ‘Strong Schools’ Resolution. Supporting this resolution is not neutral—it advances policies that disproportionately harm working-class families, destabilize our neighborhood schools, and deepen enrollment decline rather than reverse it. A vote for this resolution sends a clear message: SFUSD leadership is choosing systemic disinvestment over the well-being of our children and placing an unjust burden on the shoulders of the families who keep our schools alive,” said Reina Tello, Community Organizer at PODER SF and member of the Small Schools Coalition.
It is ironic that the Mayor fast-tracked his Family Upzoning Plan through the Board of Supervisors. The Mayor proposes to significantly increase the number of families, while the School District is pointing to declining enrollment as a pretext for shuttering schools. To see two major policy proposals moving in entirely opposite directions is confounding; however, both proposals are poised to disproportionately harm our most vulnerable communities.
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About the Small Schools Coalition
The Small Schools Coalition brings together parents, students, educators, administrators, and community members across San Francisco. We are organizing to protect our small schools and to protect the public education of our children and our future. We highlight the voices of our communities because they are the experts on how our kids learn the best.
