San Francisco Local Government

After nearly a year of bargaining, the San Francisco Unified School District and the teachers’ union reached a tentative contract that ends the city’s first districtwide teachers strike since 1979 — a walkout by about 6,000 teachers that closed all 120 SFUSD schools and affected roughly 50,000 students. The agreement, which will reopen schools to staff on Friday and to students the following Wednesday, addresses core disputes over pay and benefits (the union had sought a 9% raise over two years and fully funded family health care while the district proposed a 6% raise over three years with either 75% Kaiser family coverage or a $24,000 annual allowance) and touches on staffing for special education and supports for homeless and immigrant students amid the district’s reported $100 million deficit.

Conservative watchdog Judicial Watch has filed a federal lawsuit seeking to halt Evanston, Illinois’s reparations program on the grounds that it limits eligibility to Black residents and their descendants, representing five non‑Black plaintiffs who say they otherwise meet the criteria for $25,000 payments but are excluded solely because of race. Evanston says the current round will send $25,000 to 44 recipients, that 137 people have already received $3.47 million (with 171 recipients and about $4 million expected by year’s end), and the fund has been seeded with $276,588 from the city’s real‑estate transfer tax while officials consider a tax on Delta‑8 THC products to sustain it.