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SFUSD staff recommend termination; teacher who identified herself as Marta Valejo Kaufman apologizes and disputes key facts
Summary
SFUSD general counsel summarized staff recommendations to terminate a second‑grade bilingual teacher for alleged misconduct during an April classroom incident; the teacher, who identified herself as Marta Valejo Kaufman, disputed parts of the account, apologized and asked to return to work while the board voted to suspend her pending a hearing.
San Francisco — School district lawyers told the Board of Education on July 29 that staff recommend terminating a permanent certificated SFUSD employee and placing her on unpaid suspension pending a hearing after an April 4 classroom incident involving a second‑grade student with an individualized education program (IEP).
General counsel Manuel Martinez summarized the district’s account: staff say a paraprofessional used a trained safety hold during a behavioral episode, and that the teacher — described in staff materials as "Miss Vallejo" — left students unattended in the hallway, approached the restrained student, was spat at, wiped spit from her mouth and then, according to staff, spat deliberately into the student’s face a second time and held the student’s face by the cheeks. Martinez said staff recommended termination on grounds including "immoral conduct," "willful refusal to follow reasonable district regulations," and "evident unfitness for service," citing several Education Code provisions.
The teacher addressed the board immediately afterward. "My name is Marta Valejo Kaufman," she said, and rejected most of the charges. She said she had been a Spanish bilingual teacher at Moscone Elementary since 2013, described a record of positive evaluations and long service to students, and said she "never touched the student." According to her account, the student spat on her face and glasses and she "spat air out" in a reflexive, disgusted response; she said she did not intend to harm the child and expressed remorse. "If I could change things, I would just have walked away and used the walkie talkie to ask for help," she told the board, and asked for the chance to return to work and to undertake discipline or training.
President Kim then recessed the public meeting into closed session; when the board reconvened it reported that on a vote of seven ayes the board had approved a proposed statement of charges and had approved placing the respondent on unpaid suspension pending hearing and disposition of the charges and to provide notice of suspension.
What happens next: the board’s public report said the suspension is pending a formal hearing and disposition of the charges. The legal citations Martinez read during the summary refer to Education Code provisions the district cited in outlining the grounds for discipline and the authority to suspend a certificated employee pending a hearing.
The board did not take further public action on the charges at this meeting. The district’s general counsel and the superintendent indicated that the matter will move through the formal personnel and hearing process required under state law; the board noted it had given direction to counsel in several litigation matters earlier in the meeting.
The district did not provide additional operational details about the pending hearing schedule at the time the charges were announced. Martinez read the staff recommendation into the record; the teacher used her allotted public time to speak directly to the board before the board reentered closed session. The meeting record shows both the staff summary and the teacher’s statement are on the public record for the July 29 session.
