Small Schools Coalition Urges Board of Education to Reject Budget Cuts, Staffing Model & “Strong Schools” Resolution
PRESS RELEASE for Tuesday, December 16, 2025
San Francisco, CA – Today, 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) – removing 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. Speakers:
MCs: Kazani Finao & Juana Tello, 5 Elements Youth Collective
Toto, Student, Academy High School
Matt Alexander, Commissioner, Board of Education
Alan Tello, Student, June Jordan School for Equity
Educator, Visitacion Valley Middle School
Reina Tello, Community Organizer, PODER SF & REP-SF
Gaelan Spor, Parent, San Francisco Community School
Brandee Marckmann, Co-Founder, San Francisco Education Alliance
Frank Lara, Executive Vice President, United Educators of San Francisco (UESF)
“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.
This resolution directs the Superintendent to produce a school-consolidation blueprint by the 2026–27 school year – but families are being told that “closures aren’t part of the budget plan.” These statements cannot both be true.
We ask the Board to be honest about what this plan does: it sets in motion a system that consolidates, closes, or repurposes schools, with a 7-month timeline and no meaningful community process (in comparison to the 2-year timeline from the previously failed RAI process).
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.
“Last year, my school was listed for closure despite being considered a gem of the community. The District claimed that their decision to close Harvey Milk was due to ‘underenrollment,’ when in fact there are families on our waiting list wanting to get in. The narrative that there are less children in San Francisco is a false one being promoted in order to destabilize schools. Families want to attend our schools, but they are faced by a terrible enrollment process and poorly coordinated hiring process that is unwelcoming. Truly stable schools means having a vision that expands programs, welcomes new families, and offers quality public education for all,” said Coach Glenn Castro, an educator at Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy and a member of the Small Schools Coalition.
“Communities of color—especially in the Southeast—have faced the brunt of cuts and instability. Closing small schools in these neighborhoods displaces students from their own communities, exactly the opposite of equitable policy. This plan will widen racial and socioeconomic disparities and fuel the very inequities SFUSD claims to dismantle. Families in the Southeast and other neighborhoods should not have to leave their communities to receive a fully resourced education,” said Jeantelle Laberinto of the Race & Equity in all Planning Coalition (REP-SF), a member of the Small Schools Coalition.
“REP-SF is deeply concerned about the City’s plan to close our public schools at the same time it is advancing the Mayor’s Family Upzoning Plan, which aims to add 800,000 new housing units and dramatically increase San Francisco’s population. Where will everyone’s kids go to school? If the City intends to increase housing, it must also increase–rather than decrease–our public school resources,” said Joseph Smooke of the Race & Equity in all Planning Coalition (REP-SF), a member of the Small Schools Coalition.
“The plan to close nine public schools would result in overcrowded classrooms throughout SFUSD, which would ultimately push enrollment numbers downward and negatively impact finances. School closures bring blight to our neighborhoods and shutter nearby small businesses. San Francisco families deserve cost-effective, sustainable community schools with wraparound services for our families and neighborhoods to boost enrollment and student outcomes,” said Brandee Marckmann, a parent and Co-Founder of the SF Education Alliance.
“Small schools exist by design—to create tight-knit, culturally affirming environments with low student-to-teacher ratios. Small schools are disproportionately the ones serving high-needs students—students for whom transitions can be traumatic and educationally damaging. We must protect our small schools through deeper investments to improve our schools and increase enrollment, rather than closing or merging schools,” said Alan Tello, a Senior at June Jordan School for Equity and a member of the Small Schools Coalition.
“The current budget priorities by the school board disrupts relationships, fractures community networks, and eliminates the support systems students rely on. If SFUSD is truly committed to long-term sustainability, it should focus on restoring trust, not cutting budgets that affect frontline staff at schools and divest from neighborhood schools that anchor our communities. There are opportunities to increase enrollment and welcome new families to our public schools, but we need a leadership that prioritizes growth, not cuts,” said Frank Lara, Executive Vice President of the United Educators of San Francisco.
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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 best.
