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SFUSD reports 95% of general‑education classrooms staffed at start of year, warns TK and special‑education hiring remain strained
Summary
Human Resources reported the district met its beginning‑of‑year target with roughly 94–95% of general‑education classrooms filled, but noted persistent shortages in transitional kindergarten and special education. HR outlined reorganization, ticketing improvements, and plans for a public staffing dashboard.
San Francisco Unified School District human resources leaders reported that 94–95% of general‑education classrooms had a permanent teacher assigned at the start of the school year, surpassing the board’s 92% guardrail for filled classrooms.
Stacy Affleck, executive director of staffing, said the district reached about 94% on day one and 95% by day seven, and added that substitute‑coverage capacity improved through an expanded substitute pool. “That means more of our students start off the year with a permanent teacher in place,” Affleck told the Board.
HR leaders cautioned, however, that the district still faces concentrated vacancies in transitional kindergarten (TK) and special‑education classrooms. Affleck said the state’s credentialing changes for TK—requiring a multiple‑subject credential plus documented early‑education experience—reduced flexibility this year and made some positions harder to fill.
Svend Ervin (executive staffing lead) and other HR staff said the department processed more than 2,300 staffing activities across the district this year, including hiring classroom teachers, administrators and paraeducators. HR emphasized that the department had restructured over the spring and summer to create a single staffing generalist contact for schools rather than multiple, specialized staffing teams.
Christelle Del Rosario (executive director) reported service metrics intended to improve transparency: between June 2024 and June 2025 HR answered 25,479 internal tickets with an average response time of about 22 hours and handled roughly 5,466 in‑person or appointment‑based customer contacts. Labor relations director Apollinar Queissaka outlined ongoing bargaining unit collaboration and grievance work.
HR leaders said the Frontline (human capital) and Red Rover (substitute management) system implementations created a short‑term operational burden because staff focused on system stand‑up during the summer, but that the new platforms will enable more timely reporting. Chris Benitez, deputy superintendent of business services, who presented the budget earlier in the meeting, said the district is working to integrate systems so a public dashboard can report staffing, vacancies and budget alignment.
To address difficult‑to‑fill positions, HR outlined near‑term actions: a public vacancies dashboard, closer coordination of staffing allocations with educational leadership (Ed Services and Special Education), and longer‑term recruitment strategies including partnerships and targeted pipelines for bilingual and special‑education teachers. HR cautioned that competition statewide for credentialed bilingual and special‑education candidates is intense and that solutions will require coordinated budget and program decisions.
No formal board action was taken. Several commissioners asked for more disaggregated vacancy data—by site, program and credential—and requested that future updates include site‑level principals’ perspectives and measurable timelines for closing special‑education and TK vacancies.
HR said it will return with a public dashboard and additional monitoring metrics as part of the district’s guardrail reporting cycle.
