As a result, SFUSD does not have enough credentialed teachers to give every student a quality education, the grand jury found.

“We were initially drawn to this topic by headlines we saw this year about SFUSD’s difficulties recruiting and retaining credentialed teachers,” said Karen Kennard, the grand jury foreperson. “As we investigated further, we learned that the district’s problems aren’t just a COVID story — they have been losing 9-10% of teachers per year for more than a decade.”

The volunteer group, composed of 19 city residents appointed by the San Francisco Superior Court to one-year terms, analyzed data for the 2020-21 school year, the latest available, and conducted interviews with district leadership and staff, representatives of the San Francisco Board of Education, staff from SFUSD’s teacher accreditation program, principals and teachers.

For the 2020-21 school year, the report found that 76% of SFUSD teachers were fully credentialed. For the state at-large, that figure is 83%, and in the nine-county Bay Area, it is 81%.

Within the Bay Area, only one county ranked worse than San Francisco for its percentage of fully credentialed teachers: Alameda, at 75%.

San Francisco also fared worse than the state and the Bay Area on its level of “ineffective teachers,” which includes people without a teaching license who are assigned under an emergency permit, people who are credentialed as administrators or other school personnel but not as teachers, people who have no authority to teach in California, and vacant positions.

The report found that in San Francisco Unified, 9% of teaching positions were “ineffective”  placements, compared with 4% for California as a whole and 6% across the Bay Area. As with fully credentialed teachers, among Bay Area counties only Alameda ranked worse than San Francisco for its percentage of ineffective teachers.

The remaining teachers who are neither fully credentialed nor ineffective are either interns, which means they hold a temporary license that allows them to teach for two years, or out-of-field, which means they hold a credential but not for the subject or grade they are assigned;

The report noted that while more recent data was not available, interviews with school administrators and educators indicated that the problem had only gotten worse.

“We agree that in an ideal situation, anyone working in a classroom would have a preliminary or clear credential,” Laura Dudnick, a spokesperson for SFUSD, wrote in an email to The Chronicle. “But because of the national teacher shortage, SFUSD, like many other school districts, hires educators under permits and/or waivers as outlined and accepted by the California Commission on Teacher Credentialing.”

The district initially did not want to cooperate with the investigation, the grand jury said, noting that requests for interviews and information “frequently went unacknowledged” and that interview subjects refused to participate or make themselves available. As a result, “repeated interventions” were required by the city attorney, and the grand jury was slowed in its ability to examine the issues, the report said.

The report acknowledged that many people were unfamiliar with the grand jury and didn’t know they had to participate, and jurors were eventually able to conduct the interviews they wanted. 

“Nevertheless, SFUSD has room to improve in its willingness and ability to fully track, recognize, and communicate the challenges it faces,” the report said. 

“A more data-driven and forthright management culture would only help the District’s efforts to recruit and retain credentialed teachers,” it said. 

Dudnick did not respond directly to a question about this finding, but instead said that the district is reviewing the jury’s report in detail.

“We will comment on the findings and assertions after we have had the opportunity to thoroughly evaluate them,” she wrote in an email to The Chronicle. “No matter what we ultimately determine, we appreciate the time and effort spent by the civil grand jury and its members to provide feedback to our district.”

Among the issues affecting recruitment and retention, the report found, is SFUSD’s low starting salary, which the report notes is one of the lowest in the Bay Area at $54,289, and is lower than what the federal government defines as “very low income” for a family of four, $92,000, as well as for one person, $65,050.

But, the report noted, San Francisco does offer very competitive benefits that could make it more attractive than others in the Bay Area, including contributions to teacher pensions and lifetime access to benefits. The city also offers programs intended to help teachers afford homes in San Francisco. 

However, the grand jury said, the district does not sufficiently advertise these benefits, calling it a “missed opportunity” to recruit employees.

The grand jury also pointed to the district’s payroll debacle that has resulted in inaccurate paychecks, canceled benefits and improper deductions, even as administrators have poured more and more millions into fixing the broken $14 million payroll system. All of this, the report said, “tarnished (the district’s) reputation as an employer of choice.”

“We note that there are challenges facing SFUSD: a national teacher shortage, a budget deficit, the impacts of the pandemic, and a disruptive new payroll system that we are in the process of fixing,” Dudnick of SFUSD said. “None of these are excuses, but a recitation of the realities of our school district that the superintendent, administration and Board of Education are attempting to address.”

Finally, the grand jury found that that the school district does not maintain a “formal database” of reasons why people decline its job offers or leave district jobs, making it “impossible for the Jury — or the District itself — to precisely determine why SFUSD does not recruit or retain an adequate quantity of credentialed teachers.”

However, the report did point to a prominent recruitment effort by the district: its Pathway to Teaching program, an accelerated, practice-based credential program in which candidates can earn a salary while completing requirements for a credential. The program so far has had 259 graduates, but the jury said it merits further study to evaluate how well it works.

To remedy its problems, the grand jury largely suggested the school district improve its tracking and issue annual public reports on recruitment efforts, teacher salaries, why teachers do not accept job offers with the district, and why teachers leave. It also suggested the district promote employee benefits more.

The grand jury also recommended that Mayor London Breed ask the San Francisco Controller’s Office to conduct a root-cause analysis of the district’s purchase and implementation of EMPowerSF, the beleaguered payroll system, and the district’s failure to correctly report staff tax withholdings as part of the payroll breakdown.

Dudnick pointed to the district’s existing efforts to recruit and retain teachers, including the Pathway to Teaching and Para to Teacher program, which also helps teachers get credentialed. The district also offers paid professional development, one-on-one coaching and capacity-building for new teachers, as well as bonuses, she said.

The mayor and the superintendent of schools must respond to the report within 60 days, and the Board of Education must respond within 90 days.

Reach Danielle Echeverria: danielle.echeverria@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @DanielleEchev