'We Can't Afford to Lose Both': SF Families Speak Out as Schools Cut Staff and Expand Summer Programs in the Same Breath

San Francisco Unified School District is heading into the 2026–27 school year having cut roughly $113 million from its operating budget while simultaneously expanding summer programming at more than 40 sites across the city — a contradiction that parents, teachers, and community advocates say has become impossible to ignore.

The timing matters. SFUSD has been bleeding students for years, with enrollment dropping from roughly 52,000 a decade ago to around 47,000 today, shrinking the state per-pupil funding the district depends on. Board members approved the latest round of cuts in April, targeting positions in special education support, counseling, and school library staffing. Meanwhile, the district's Office of Equity pushed ahead with an expanded Summer Rising program, the federally partially-funded initiative that runs through late July at schools including Buena Vista Horace Mann in the Mission District and César Chávez Elementary in Bernal Heights.

For families in those neighborhoods, the message feels scrambled. A parent of two children at César Chávez told The Daily San Francisco she was relieved her kids had somewhere safe and structured to go this July — but furious that the reading specialist who worked with her younger son all year had been laid off in June. "You expand the summer program but you cut the person who was actually helping him learn to read," she said. "That's not a solution. That's a press release."

Staff Cuts Hit Hardest in High-Need Schools

Teachers and school staff say the cuts aren't landing evenly. Schools serving lower-income zip codes — including Visitacion Valley, Bayview-Hunters Point, and the Tenderloin — lost proportionally more support staff than schools in wealthier corridors like West Portal or Noe Valley, according to internal staffing documents reviewed by community advocacy group Coleman Advocates for Children and Youth. Coleman has been meeting with district officials since May, pushing for a more transparent accounting of which positions were eliminated and why.

The San Francisco teachers union, United Educators of San Francisco, filed a formal grievance in late May arguing that some of the layoffs violated seniority protections in the collective bargaining agreement. That dispute is still unresolved. The union represents roughly 6,000 educators across the district.

Summer Rising, for its part, is serving an estimated 7,200 students this summer at no cost to families — up from about 6,000 last year. The expansion drew on a combination of federal Title I funding, a $4 million allocation from the city's Department of Children, Youth and Their Families, and private philanthropic dollars. Officials at City Hall, still navigating Mayor Daniel Lurie's first full budget cycle after the turbulent final years of London Breed's tenure, pointed to the summer program as evidence that the city remains committed to children even in a tight fiscal environment.

That argument lands differently depending on where you live. At the Bayview YMCA on Reddy Street, which partners with SFUSD to run extended summer hours, program coordinator staff said they were fielding daily calls from parents asking whether fall programs would survive the next round of cuts. The YMCA's Bayview site serves roughly 180 children during the school year in afterschool programming, many of them from families earning below 60 percent of the area median income.

What Comes Next for Families Trying to Plan

The district's next budget checkpoint comes in September, when the state releases revised enrollment projections that will determine whether SFUSD faces a second consecutive year of deficit spending. If enrollment continues falling at its current pace — roughly 500 to 700 students annually — the district could be forced to consider school consolidations as early as spring 2027, a conversation that board members have avoided publicly but that Superintendent Dr. María Su has acknowledged in closed session.

Coleman Advocates is urging families to attend the next SFUSD Board of Education meeting, scheduled for July 22 at 555 Franklin Street, and submit public comment before the September deadline. Parents who believe their child's school lost positions illegally can file complaints directly with the district's Office of General Counsel. The Summer Rising program runs through July 31 at most sites; fall registration for afterschool programming opens August 11.