Some San Francisco Unified parents frustrated over lack of permanent TK teachers

By Kenny Choi

San Francisco public school parents are demanding solutions from district officials after seeing their children attending school without a permanent teacher for months now. 

Statewide mandates and requirements for transitional kindergarten classes are leaving some school districts like San Francisco in a difficult situation. 

Pickup time at school has become a stress test for parents. It’s Paul Rivera’s daughter’s first year in the San Francisco Unified School District as a Transitional Kindergartner. 

“I have never been more frustrated as a parent,” said Rivera. 

Since the start of the school year, his daughter hasn’t had a permanent teacher she knows by name. 

“She’s been rotating through a cast of about 10 or so substitute teachers at this point,” said Rivera. 

Jennifer Bordner also has a child in TK at McCoppin Elementary in the Sunset District.  

“Sometimes it’s like, ‘We watched Bluey in class today,'” said Bordner. 

“They were just running around the classroom, and they were playing with the lights,” said parent Susan Zhang. 

Parents say SFUSD hasn’t been able to permanently staff all 18 of its TK classes. 

They’re critical SFUSD is receiving more state funding because of TK enrollment, but not offering solutions to fill a glaring gap – leading to what they call chaotic classrooms.   

“Their pattern recognition is like, ‘I can kind of do what I want.  These teachers sort of know my name. Sometimes they don’t.’ The rules are different every day. They don’t know what to expect, and they’re setting foundations for how to learn. That’s a problem,” said Bordner. 

“It just feels like there’s chaos in the classroom,” said Zhang. 

Staffing TK classes in the midst of a mandated statewide expansion has become a challenge for school districts because of a “statewide shortage of credentialed TK teachers” according to SFUSD.  

Wanzi Muruvi is with the UC Berkeley Center for the Study of Child Care Employment. She says new credentialing requirements by the California Department of Education are problematic. 

“They need to create a pathway that allows the preschool teachers to get the credentials without having to go through an onerous system when they already are already qualified to teach the four-year-olds,” Muruvi told CBS News Bay Area. 

Muruvi said the credentialing system is creating a bottleneck and preventing tens of thousands of qualified pre-school educators from securing public school TK jobs.

SFUSD has touted 97% of its classrooms having fully credentialed teachers. 

“They’re all like pointing at each other, not my problem, not my problem.  At the end of the day, it’s the kids and their families taking a hit,” said Bordner. 

“I love public schools, and I wanted to raise a public school child, but this has left me completely frustrated,” said Rivera. 

The lack of TK teachers is pushing some parents to consider opting out and walking away. 

CBS News Bay Area requested an interview with SFUSD but the district spokesperson sent us this statement instead, reading in part: 

“SFUSD continues to actively recruit qualified teachers for a small number of remaining TK vacancies. These positions have been challenging to fill due to statewide shortages of credentialed TK teachers. In the meantime, we are ensuring that all classrooms have consistent coverage by qualified substitutes or long-term staff, with instructional coaches providing support across these sites to maintain continuity of instruction for students.” 

Parents say the district initially ignored requests for updates but is now holding weekly meetings. 

They say the district officials have even asked parents for help recruiting qualified teachers.