I am an SFUSD parent, an SEIU union steward, and a Community Schools Coordinator at Star King Elementary.

Members of SEIU 1021 are here and we are proud to stand with UESF and the educators at SFUSD.

We come from different professions.

We come from different neighborhoods and backgrounds, but we are all in the same fight.

We all know what thriving schools look like.

Healthy classroom sizes, livable wages, and happy, safe students.

But district management clearly doesn’t understand what it takes to make schools thrive.

That’s why we’re here today.

They push back against educators, they push back against sanctuary schools, they push back against critical special education funding, and they push back against wage increases.

They claim to be in fiscal crisis.

Meanwhile, they have a seemingly endless well for payroll systems that don’t pass, for exorbitant executive cabinet member salaries, and a raise that gave Maria Su a base salary of $385,000.

SEIU members are going unpaid to strike in solidarity with UESF because their fight is our fight.

Because we are tired of being ignored and treated like second-class citizens.

Because we are tired of paying for the district’s bad decisions.

Our members are some of the lowest-paid workers in the district that they are sacrificing because they can’t take this anymore.

We have custodians literally carrying garbage bins on their backs, up and down stairs, because the district refuses to fix elevators at their schools.

The mayor said yesterday he wanted schools to be open so our kids could be in school.

Mayor Lurie, your kids go to private school.

Please listen to the people who are actually at school sites fighting these battles every single day.

So let’s hear it for SFUSD, educators, the UESF, and everybody at the school site!