Kids at Glen Park Elementary in San Francisco are learning, yet again, that sometimes life just isn’t fair.

You might recall the blue school made this column in 2017, when a first-grade classroom went through 13 teachers in one year after their original one left because of medical issues, and the school district shuffled through a string of substitutes. The district declined to let No. 12 stay on board because she was the daughter of the principal — even though the class and parents loved her, her mother had no role in selecting her, and there wasn’t anybody else qualified for the job who wanted it.

Now, a second-grade teacher at the school is on leave for at least the rest of the school year as she battles cancer. Parents were shocked when they discovered the school district is charging her for her own substitute.

“Parents were outraged and incredulous — like, this can’t be,” said Amanda Fried, who has a daughter in kindergarten and another in third grade. “There must be some mistake.”

But there was no mistake. The teacher, who doesn’t want to be named for privacy reasons, really does have to pay for her own substitute while she’s out sick. And it’s because of state law.

Like many aspects of public education and bureaucracy, the reason is confusing, and everybody I asked pointed fingers at somebody else.

“This is not unique to San Francisco,” explained school district spokeswoman Laura Dudnick. “This is not a district-only rule.”

Teachers in California don’t pay into the state disability insurance program, so they can’t draw its benefits. The governor and state Legislature in 1976 inserted into the education code that public school teachers can go on leave for an illness or an injury for five months and that their paychecks will be whole, minus the cost of a substitute teacher.

Incredibly, the law allows districts to deduct the pay of a substitute even if no substitute was hired.

I had questions for the state, but Cynthia Butler, spokeswoman for the California Department of Education, said I should talk to the school district and teachers’ union.

In San Francisco, teachers can first use their allotted 10 sick days per year and then go on leave for 100 days, during which they’ll be paid their regular salary minus the cost of a sub, which ranges from $174.66 to $240.26 per day.

After that, teachers can dip into the catastrophic sick leave bank, which is run jointly by the teachers’ union and school district. Those are sick days donated by teachers around the district for their peers, and there are currently 511 days in the bank, according to Susan Solomon, president of the teachers’ union.

A teacher can draw up to 85 sick days from the bank, and that pay isn’t cut to offset the cost of a substitute teacher.

“Officially, we have nothing in the contract beyond that,” Solomon said. “I think we could always do better. In a broader sense, I think single-payer health care is the answer.”

Could our health care system get any more expensive, confusing or full of holes? It doesn’t seem like it.

Fried said that while parents are angry on the teacher’s behalf, the school’s staff doesn’t seem riled up.

“The teachers have sort of shrugged — like, yes, that’s how it is,” she said. “That makes it even more sad, because teachers expect to be treated poorly.”

In the meantime, families and staff at Glen Park Elementary have contributed to a GoFundMe campaign for the teacher. And kids are planning to host some bake sales.

That’s always the answer in our short-changed public school system, right? Go home and bake cookies.

In more distressing kid news out of Glen Park, the glorious new recreation center in the canyon was covered in purple, yellow and black spray paint on Saturday night.

The center underwent a $14 million rehab project and reopened two years ago, complete with an indoor rock-climbing wall and gym. But vandals over the weekend tagged several exterior walls, as well as windows, a picnic table, stairs and a public art installation.

Back to Gallery Cancer-stricken teacher charged for sub’s wages 4 1 of 4 Photo: Heather Knight / San Francisco Chronicle 2 of 4 Photo: Heather Knight / San Francisco Chronicle 3 of 4 Photo: Heather Knight / San Francisco Chronicle 4 of 4 Photo: Heather Knight / San Francisco Chronicle







As a mom in Glen Park whose kids love the canyon and rec center, I’m saddened and annoyed. But Phil Ginsburg, director of the Recreation and Park Department, is downright mad.

“I’m outraged! It’s extremely frustrating,” he said. “Glen Park is a jewel. It’s idiotic, unacceptable behavior.”

Ginsburg’s department is already working with the Arts Commission to fix the damage done to artist Charles Sowers’ “Solar Totems.” A man with Public Works was cleaning paint off the windows early Monday morning. And the police department is gathering footage from security cameras in the hope of catching the culprits.

Tamara Aparton, a spokeswoman with Rec and Park, said there have been 3,179 incidents of vandalism in the city’s parks this fiscal year, and they’ve cost $779,000 to fix. That doesn’t include arson, which is more costly. A golf course clubhouse that was torched in Golden Gate Park last year, for example, is expected to cost $4 million to repair.

“We spend a lot of time cleaning up after other people’s bad behavior,” Ginsburg said.

This city is a hotbed of property crime. But parks? Really? That’s just sad.

It was a who’s who of San Francisco at City Hall on Monday morning for the swearing-in of the city’s new fire chief, Jeanine Nicholson. She becomes not only the second woman ever to run the San Francisco Fire Department, after the retirement of Joanne Hayes-White, but also the first member of the LGBT community to hold the job.

“I moved here 30 years ago, and I felt welcomed from the start,” she said in a moving, funny speech. “I could be who and how I was without question.”

She’s a 25-year veteran of the Fire Department, most recently serving as deputy chief of administration. And in recounting her childhood, she made it clear she’s ready for the dog-eat-dog world of San Francisco politics.

Growing up, her siblings told her she was found in the garbage and wasn’t really a member of the family. Her older brother “played football with me — and I mean that literally.” And her sister “used psychological warfare instead of physical.”

“She thought she was Harriet the Spy and kept files on the entire family,” she said. “Let’s just say they were not flattering depictions of us. She, of course, became an attorney.”

She also hit some serious notes, talking about the importance of addressing the high levels of cancer and post-traumatic stress disorder among firefighters. She herself in 2012 was diagnosed with an aggressive type of breast cancer, undergoing a double mastectomy and 16 rounds of chemotherapy.

“I felt awful most of the time,” she said. “Yet I am one of the lucky ones because I’m standing here today.”

Mayor London Breed swore in the new chief, after which a firefighter sang Alicia Keys’ “Girl on Fire.” The same song played when Hayes-White took the stage to give a speech at her retirement party at the United Irish Cultural Center on Sunday night.

Best wishes to Hayes-White in her retirement and to Nicholson in her new job as chief.

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Heather Knight appears Sundays and Tuesdays. Email: hknight@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @hknightsf