San Francisco parents tried to balance work schedules and children’s days on Wednesday as teachers’ strike closures dragged into a third school day, with the district keeping all 120 schools closed and nearly 50,000 students staying home. Connor Haught, who works from home in construction, said the “big concern” for parents was “really the timeline of it all and trying to prepare for how long this could go on,” as he and his wife tried to fill the days without knowing how long the disruption would last.
Haught said his family planned for the first week of the strike by keeping his two daughters, ages 8 and 9, at home and trying to coordinate play dates and nearby outings with other families. He said they avoided jumping immediately on costly camps and other paid options because they believed their schedule could be more flexible than some other families affected by the walkout. He also said they had not fully figured out what they would do if the strike continued.
The United Educators of San Francisco and the district have been negotiating for nearly a year, and parents said that uncertainty had become difficult to manage. According to the reports, the union’s demands included fully funded family health care, raises and the filling of vacant positions affecting special education and related services.
Not all families approached the closure the same way. Some parents relied on after-school programs that offered full-day programming during the strike, while others leaned on relatives and neighbors for child care coverage. Mahdi Rahimi, who has a son in public school, said families with the San Francisco Parents Coalition urged both sides to compromise, warning that “Everyday that the schools are closed, it comes with incredible pain and cost to many, many, children.”
Sonia Sanabria described a different kind of scramble, saying she took a day off from her job as a cook to care for her 5-year-old daughter and 11-year-old nephew at home because leaving them with her elderly mother was not an option. Sanabria said she provided reading and writing assignments and worked on math problems, planning support day-by-day as the strike continued. She also said that if the strike lasted longer, she would have to request a leave of absence, adding that if she did not work, she did not earn.
Teachers on the picket lines acknowledged that the strike was hard on students even as they said they were walking out to push for stability in the future. Lily Perales, a history teacher at Mission High School, said teachers believed students “deserve to learn safely in schools,” and that safety included having fully staffed schools and competitive wage packages and health care, along with fully funding programs students need most.
Earlier Wednesday, Superintendent Maria Su urged urgency in negotiations, saying the district had a counterproposal ready Tuesday night and was prepared to negotiate through the night, but that union negotiators had left for the day. Su said the district had been ready to negotiate “this entire time,” and added: “We are prepared and committed to getting this agreement done today.”
As negotiations continued, the two sides remained apart on the core economic terms. The union initially asked for a 9% raise over two years, saying it could help offset the cost of living in San Francisco, while the district countered with a 6% wage increase over three years. The district also faces a reported $100 million deficit and is under state oversight tied to a long-standing financial crisis, while officials and union leaders continued to weigh how to fund family health benefits alongside classroom staffing needs.