***MEDIA ADVISORY FOR MON. 7/11***

Contact: Jennie Smith-Camejo, jennie.smith-camejo@seiu1021.org, (510) 710-0201

San Francisco City College is a unique, treasured San Francisco institution, offering free higher education and workforce training to the city’s most disadvantaged students. Its role in providing English language learners, formerly incarcerated adults, low-income students of color, and other underserved demographics with quality education and a pathway to well-paid careers is vital to helping them stay in San Francisco and to preserving the city’s vibrant character as a melting pot of cultures, ethnicities, and backgrounds. However, decades of cuts to funding and programming, amplified by the COVID pandemic, have damaged City College’s ability to meet these students’ needs.

City College faculty and staff – members of SEIU 1021, AFT 2121, the SF Building Trades, and Stationary Engineers – have joined forces to put together a ballot measure that, if approved, will provide approximately $45 million in funding to strengthen the college’s programs and services in areas that are especially critical for the students with the highest levels of need. SF voters are already showing substantial support: The petition to put the measure on the November ballot has already gathered roughly double the roughly 9,000 signatures needed to qualify. Monday at 12pm, leaders of the effort will rally and speak with media outside City Hall before turning in the signatures to put the initiative on the ballot.

WHO: City College faculty and staff, joined by Supervisors Gordon Mar and Myrna Melgar

WHEN: Monday, July 11, at 12pm 

WHERE: City Hall steps (Polk St. side) 

WHAT: Rally with speakers and media availability, after which leaders will submit qualifying signatures

“We are thrilled at the level of community support for this initiative so far,” said City College Classified Senate President and SEIU 1021 Education Industry Chair Maria Salazar-Colón. “Many of the students we serve at City College need support to continue their education – things like childcare, English as a second language classes, tutoring services, even help meeting basic needs like housing and food. We serve students who don’t have a lot of options for higher education and workforce training. These are folks being pushed to the margins and pushed out of the city. The funding provided by this ballot measure will help us get these students the support, resources, and programs they need to get good jobs and stay in San Francisco.”

AFT 2121 President Mary Bravewoman said, “This measure represents a much-needed investment in higher education and workforce training for the people of San Francisco. The revenue raised will allow City College to build back the programs and services that are most needed in our communities, especially as the most vulnerable San Franciscans work to recover from the pandemic and prepare for a recession.” 

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Revenue Unity Coalition of City College is a coalition of stakeholders including SEIU 1021, AFT 2121, the Building Trades, Stationary Engineers and District Administration all working to develop strategies to fund the vital services that City College provides to the City of San Francisco. We believe that labor working together with college and city leaders can and will fund San Francisco’s future.

Learn more at sfwercs.com.