The San Francisco teacher’s union is entering day three of its first strike in 47 years. Educators are walking picket lines across the city and marching on City Hall in the rain. Bargaining between the United Educators of San Francisco and the school district is wearing on. According to SFUSD Superintendent Maria Su, progress is being made, but the core debate around healthcare and wages is still at an impasse. Around 50,000 students remain affected.
Christopher Hackett is a community health outreach worker at The Academy – San Francisco at McAteer high school. A San Francisco native, he is among some 6,000 SFUSD teachers on strike. He spoke to ACoM’s Christopher Alam about his personal experience as an educator in San Francisco and why he’s standing with his fellow educators.
I’m participating in this strike to stand in solidarity with our union. At the beginning of the year through bargaining and a strict process we asked for things like dependent healthcare for our teachers, raises for our paraeducators, and better working conditions for our special ed departments.
Through a meticulous process we’ve been going about this, and asking for small improvements over time, but SFUSD officials gave us nothing. They didn’t compromise at all in the beginning. Through our strict union processes, that led us to strike. I’m here to support the entire union, because when one of us needs something, we all need something.
Part of the standoff between the district and the union has been over funding for special education. How do you see this issue?
I work in the wellness center so I see a lot of kids with Individualized Education Plans (IEPs). Para professionals are the people who work directly with those students. So if they need tutoring or different support out of the classroom, those paras are the ones who make that happen and make education a little bit more equitable for our students. The fact they don’t get paid over breaks or summers or compensated in a competitive way makes it really tough for them to stay in the job and work with our students who need it the most.
And the district has been claiming they don’t have the money or can’t find the money in places, but I think the money can be found in other places. In our fact finding sheet, it basically said the money was around but it wouldn’t be feasible for the district to spend it on us in that way. I don’t really believe that.
What are you hearing from parents, students affected by the strike?
Some of our students are electing to join us during our strikes onsite in the morning, and in our walks, or they meet up at the end or in the afternoon. They’re bringing drums. Parents for the most part, at least at my site, have been supportive, some have offered to bring us lunch. All the DHH (deaf / hard of hearing) students have been emailing their teachers about missing school and trying to work something out.
How are you feeling going into day 3?
A lot of us are feeling really hopeful. This morning or the day before, [SFUSD] granted paraprofessionals and classified employees, so that’s like me, community schools coordinators, 10% over two years, or 5% each year, and they said that they’re in talks about the healthcare part of our contracts.
As I’m walking right now on this march, there’s hundreds of people and I’m feeling pretty hopeful. I feel like I see the impact. I see lots of organizations and people standing in front of their storefronts supporting us. It’s a just cause and I hope we get what we want. It seems like things are looking up.
This is an evolving story. We will provide updates as and when they become available.
Chris Alam is a California Local News Fellow with the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.
