The San Francisco Unified School District was all set to approve a contract to provide "ChatGPT EDU" to 12,000 users across the district at the Feb. 10 school board meeting. The order form was signed by the district's technology services officer on Jan. 22, and countersigned by OpenAI's head of education four days later. Then the district nixed it from the agenda. Why?
Two days after San Francisco public school teachers voted 99.34 percent to authorize a strike, and Mission Local reported that the district is considering deep cuts that could include layoffs, Superintendent Maria Su announced that the school district is on track to stabilize its budget, and return to local control over its finances. But that's only if the school district "continue[s] to make budget cuts for next school year and avoid any significant cost escalations," Su said.
Being a school principal in San Francisco was already a job with a stress level akin to diffusing unexploded ordinance or directing air traffic. Or perhaps doing both simultaneously. The district's administrators have already reached an impasse in long-running labor negotiations. Mediation failed. Next comes a "fact-finding" panel. If that, too, fails, the next step is a potential strike vote.
