San Francisco teachers end four-day strike in $183 million deal 

Teachers in the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) ended a four-day strike Friday morning. The strike, organized by the United Educators of San Francisco (UESF), was the first of its kind in San Francisco in 50 years and led to citywide school shutdowns. Most of the labor group’s main demands — fully funded healthcare, increases to teacher salaries and support for special education teachers — were met by the district.  

“As Stanford students, we all probably have that one educator or teacher that led us towards the path of being ambitious students that strive to learn and change the world,” said Sabrina Deriche ’26, who attended the strike in San Francisco. “Educators are important, so why don’t we act like it when it comes to finances?” 

The resulting settlement was an $183 million deal, with a two-year contract beginning July 1. It guarantees a 6% raise over the contract’s two years for the 6,000 teachers in SFUSD. The path for the city to cover this cost remains unclear.

The deal did not include extended support for special education teachers and a complete 9% raise, which were among the UESF’s demands. 

Some Stanford students traveled into the city to provide support. There, they coordinated with volunteers, helped community members and worked on small business outreach. As the daughter of an educator, Deriche said it felt natural for her to stand up for the cause. 

“When I was in the city, [I couldn’t] talk to any person, even if they didn’t have children, that wasn’t personally impacted by the strike,” said Deriche.  

Additional benefits from the settlement between UESF and the school district include relief sanctuary protections for teachers and students and improved working conditions for teaching librarians, substitutes and more.  

“No educator takes going on strike lightly, this action was years in the making,” wrote Rebecca Tarlau, an associate professor of education at the Graduate School of Education (GSE) and author of forthcoming book “Teacher Organizing Across the Americas: Diverse Strategies for Transforming Unions, Schools, and Society,” in an email to The Daily. 

Tarlau added that the teachers who organized the strike framed their demands as essential to student success in the classroom, writing that “teachers’ working conditions are students’ learning conditions.”

“I just thought it was a monumental success because of how much the community was able to rally behind the teachers,” said strike attendee Juhae Song ’28. Song’s father is an educator, and she credits his job security and benefits to his union’s continued efforts.

Public policy lecturer David Crane wrote in The San Francisco Standard that the real reason for low teacher salaries and the consequent strike is that “District spending on pensions and other retirement costs has grown at nearly five times the rate of school revenues, squeezing out funds needed for teachers’ salaries.”

“If you have high schoolers pulling up on a day off at 9 a.m. to a picket line… you know you did something wrong,” Deriche said

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