As COVID-19 continues to affect the world with an unprecedented public health and economic crisis, the public education institutions in California and San Francisco are facing massive budget reductions. For decades, Bay Area communities have benefited from the programs and classes that City College of San Francisco offers. A recent survey found that 1 in 6 San Francisco residents have attended or live in a household with someone who attended CCSF. San Franciscans rely on CCSF.

Our ability to maintain our programs, including the vital training of our City’s residents, and to get back to work in the wake of COVID-19 is in serious jeopardy. Along with chronic underfunding, the current pandemic, restructuring at the college catalyzed by enrollment loss during the accreditation crisis, the new State “Student Centered Funding Formula” has caused the loss of over 600 City College classes since 2017. Without more funding, CCSF will lose at least 1,000 more classes in Fall 2020 and Spring 2021 alone. Programs affected include entire workforce training programs and departments, social justice and equity programs, and vital student support services.

In this new recession we can expect enrollment to spike as SF residents look for support in re-entering the workforce. Students depend on CCSF to boost their job prospects, which supports the economic recovery of San Francisco as a whole. In order to support them, CCSF needs additional resources. CCSF educates, trains, and staffs much of the Bay Area’s workforce in a diverse array of fields from cutting edge Biotechnology degree and certificate programs to Nursing and EMT programs, to Community Mental Health Worker and Community Health Worker certificates, to Culinary and Hospitality training, Custodial training, to an Aircraft Maintenance Technology program, and many more.

On the behalf of laid-off workers, students, and educators, AFT 2121, Supervisor Gordon Mar, the CCSF Board of Trustees, and Associated Student Leaders call on Mayor London Breed and the Board of Supervisors to establish the Workforce Education & Recovery Fund (WERF) to protect the essential services being provided by City College from further cuts.

WERF will mean CCSF can:

• Provide tuition-free job training, professional development, and education to students.

• Sustain high-demand vocational and workforce programs and classes providing upward mobility, training, and civic education such as nursing, aircraft maintenance, and construction management programs.

• Offer low-income and students of color additional academic support and wraparound services supporting student retention and job placement such as the African American Studies Resource Center, counseling and library services, and supports for students’ basic needs.  

• Retain high-demand equity, social justice, lifelong learning, and community-serving classes such as African American Studies, Latin American and Latinx Studies, Adult Basic Education, and English as a Second Language classes.
  

Mayor Breed and SF Supervisors, please commit to establishing the Workforce Education & Recovery Fund and help CCSF continue to provide the quality tuition-free higher education that San Franciscans need.