SFUSD educators hold protest as some still missing back pay ahead of new school year: 'Unacceptable'
The new school year starts next week
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) -- As San Francisco Unified School District heads into the 2025-2026 school year, some educators are dealing with payroll problems before classes even begin.
ABC7 has covered this issue for years, uncovering how the district spent about $55 million dollars total for an old payroll system and the implementation of a new system.
Following the roll out of the new system over the summer, about 100 educators said they had issues with their paychecks.
On the Tuesday before the first day of school, leaders and members of the United Educators of San Francisco gathered for a press conference outside the district office. Union leaders already sent a cease-and-desist letter to the district, followed by filing a formal complaint with the state labor board.
"Especially for starting the school year, this is unacceptable," said Frank Lara, Executive Vice President of UESF. "School communities are already destabilized and we want to start strong. We don't want this, unrelated to education, unrelated to our children to affect us."
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Lara said many of the members struggled to pay their bills, some even receiving eviction notices. The union has stepped in to try to help those members, Lara added.
At the 'Be Here!' campaign event at Cesar Chavez Elementary, Superintendent Dr. Maria Su promoted attendance and addressed the payroll issue with ABC7 News.
"We will not have the same debacle," said Dr. Su. "It's extremely important and of highest priority to ensure we pay our employees accurately and on time."
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Dr. Su put her confidence behind the new system, one she said is used by over 60% of school districts in California and has had a 97% accuracy rate so far.
"The 3% should be 0. It should be an easy 100%," said Lara of those numbers.
Dr. Su said the errors are attributed to people not being familiar with the new system and errors from the previous system. She added that moving forward, district leadership will better train employees.
"We're seeing many of the same problems," said Lara of the new district leadership.
"Under my leadership we will be holding ourselves accountable and I hope that the public and the community is holding us accountable," Dr. Su responded.
