SFUSD reaches balanced budget as enrollment and closure questions loom

SFUSD approved a $1.36 billion balanced 2026-27 budget in a 4-3 vote, giving San Francisco schools a fiscal milestone after months of emergency talk. Superintendent Maria Su called it “an important milestone” in the district’s stabilization effort, and the district said it will self-certify a positive budget to the California Department of Education by July 1.

The board’s June 23 vote also set the district’s three-year Local Control and Accountability Plan. In practical terms, the budget is meant to do more than close a deficit: SFUSD said it includes $33.3 million in commitments to cover new paid pregnancy leave, protect against federal funding risks and grant freezes, and fund student success strategies. Those investments include $8.6 million for the new paid pregnancy leave mandate, which provides up to 14 weeks beginning in 2026-27, $12.2 million for federal uncertainty, and $12.5 million for efforts tied to chronic absenteeism, outcomes for focal student populations, professional development, educator recruitment and retention, and career pathways for future special education and multilingual teachers.

For parents, the more consequential story is what the budget does not settle. SFUSD has said it wants a new school assignment system in place by fall 2028, with any school closures or mergers by fall 2030. That sequence matters because families are still waiting to learn which campuses, programs and attendance patterns the district believes it can sustain as enrollment shrinks. The district first tried to replace its lottery system in 2018, proposed a geography-based alternative in 2020 and then lost momentum when the pandemic hit.

The budget balance also does not erase the force of the enrollment drop that has shaped every recent decision. KQED reported in 2024 that SFUSD had about 4,000 fewer students than in 2012-13 and could lose 4,600 more by 2032. A fall 2024 closure proposal helped trigger former Superintendent Matt Wayne’s resignation, underscoring how politically fraught any future consolidation will be in neighborhoods that already feel overextended by long commutes, shifting school access and uneven program offerings.

The district’s financial recovery has been gradual. It adopted a balanced budget for 2025-26 in June 2025, then said in December 2025 that it was on track for positive certification in March 2026. By this month, board leaders Phil Kim and Jaime Huling were warning state officials that declining enrollment, limited per-student funding in a high-cost city and reliance on one-time funding cycles have pushed SFUSD into a deeper structural problem. The budget may have ended the immediate crisis, but the next phase will decide how many schools, staff positions and class options San Francisco can still afford to keep.