On Tuesday, February 22nd, the Board of Education will be asked to kill off the funding stream that has made Advanced Placement (AP) courses available, popular, and successful in SFUSD.

The Tentative Agreement (TA) just negotiated with UESF will end this funding, which risks further revenue losses and enrollment drops as families lose confidence in SFUSD to provide a high-quality education.

Here's what everyone in our community needs to know about this troubling agreement and why we are urging BOE Commissioners to vote NO on the TA on Tuesday, February 22nd.

WHAT IS THE CHANGE?

Under the TA, SFUSD will cease all AP incentive funding to high schools for the 2022-23 school year and presumably also into the future.

That means AP courses will go from being guaranteed to being 'possibly offered' and probably 'unlikely' because they will only be offered if there is sufficient extra staffing and funding after everything else has been accounted for.

UPDATE: The district has tried to reply to the press that we simply don't understand how great these cuts will be for our students. We would humbly recommend that the district stop making this silly argument. If a school has to educate the same number of students with 24% less funding & staff, it's unrealistic to believe that the school will be able to add AP offerings to the mix. We find this argument laughable.

HOW HAS IT WORKED UP TO NOW?

Up to now, APs were treated in the HS schedule and budget as a priority. High schools earned incentive funding for every AP exam taken at their school. Once they finished paying for the "extra AP prep period," high schools could whatever leftover funds they had to pay for more teachers, more electives, more counselors, or smaller class sizes.

And because the old system allowed high schools to prioritize staffing and funding for AP courses first, high schools could guarantee that these courses would be offered for students.

HOW WOULD THINGS WORK UNDER THE TA?

Under the TA, the whole funding structure for APs will be cut off. AP courses will no longer be prioritized for funding.

Rather than being first-priority course offerings, AP courses will become last-priority courses. This is how they are treated in other districts and is similar to a direct funding cut to your child's high school.

This change will also cause 65 high school teachers to be laid off right away.

After next year and moving onward, AP courses will only be able to be offered on an "as possible" basis — once all the school's  core graduation requirements have been staffed and funded.

WHAT WILL THIS MEAN FOR MY CHILD?

Because every high school will have to reprioritize its course offerings based on what is required and what little funding is available, there will no longer be a guarantee that your child will have AP course options or that AP course seats will be available for your child at their high school.

SFUSD has not been clear enough with stakeholders about what it means when they say they're just going to "pause" the extra AP teacher prep.

This decision will result in devastating budget decisions that will gut our students' opportunities forever and drive families out of the district for a generation.