San Francisco Unified reaches tentative reopening agreement with labor unions

After months-long negotiations, the San Francisco Unified School District and its employees’ unions on Sunday announced a tentative agreement for school reopenings. The agreement for the district of 53,000 students outlines two scenarios:

In one scenario, schools would be allowed to reopen in the red tier, which is one tier below the purple category in which the city currently sits. San Francisco would move to the red tier if the seven-day average of all Covid-19 tests that are positive remains between 5% and 8%. Schools classified under the red tiers must remain there for five consecutive days before reopening, according to state policy. Under this scenario, however, vaccines would be required for all on-site staff.

In the second scenario, the district may reopen without the distribution of vaccines to all on-site staff if San Francisco moves to the orange tier. The change to the orange tier would require that the seven-day average of all Covid-19 tests that are positive remains between 2% and 4.9%.

The agreement does not indicate a reopening will soon occur, however, as San Francisco remains in the state’s most restrictive purple tier and vaccines are not yet readily available for teachers and school staff.

“This agreement sets the state to safely reopen schools in San Francisco,” said Susan Solomon, president of the United Educators of San Francisco. “Now we need city and state officials to step up and make vaccines available to school staff now, while UESF continues to focus on finalizing agreements around classroom instruction, schedules and continuing to improve remote learning for the students and families who choose not to return even with these standards in place.”

In Southern California, Los Angeles Unified campuses remain closed and labor negotiations are ongoing. In his prepared remarks Monday morning, Supt. Austin Beutner said that schools may reopen for the district’s elementary school children if the district had access to 25,000 doses of the vaccine, to cover those not already eligible, and the rate of positive Covid-19 cases lowered in the county.

“San Francisco authorities worked together and brought the rate of infection under control and the area for some time has met the state standard for school reopening,” Beutner said. “But that’s just not the case in Los Angeles.”