San Diego Unified School District⁩'s Bold Plan: $4 Billion Housing Strategy Without Taxpayer Funds

Part two of my ⁨@schoolutionspodcast⁩ conversation with Superintendent Fabiola Bagula, Ph.D., details the San Diego Unified School District's strategies for affordable housing and community building. Their initiative showcases a regional vision for urban planning that aims to tackle the housing crisis and drive social change. This discussion offers a glimpse into real estate and local news efforts to support educators.

💫Make sure to watch Part 1 & Some Episode Mentions:
➡️David Tate's Conscious Accountability
➡️Ayanna Pressley (quoted by Fabi) "The people closest to the pain should be closest to the power." 
➡️Emancipatory Leadership and Improving Equity in Education
➡️Balboa Elementary: school where Fabi served as principal and implemented the full-day grade-level PLC/RTI model

📑 CHAPTERS
0:00 Introduction: Part 2: The Financial Strategy & Bold Regional Vision
1:45 How to reduce a billion-dollar budget deficit without sacrificing people
3:00 Investing before cutting: the asset-based approach to budget decisions
4:15 Removing "my department, my budget" identity from financial decisions
5:30 Three things every district needs to replicate the housing initiative
6:00 A forward-thinking board and strong labor union relationships
6:45 Community buy-in, and the dog park request
8:00 Documenting the process so other districts can replicate it
9:00 What emancipatory leadership means: power to the people closest to the pain
10:45 200 schools, no one-size-fits-all: regional autonomy within system stability
11:10 Influence over power: building voice, agency, and community
12:30 Giving principals protected time together for communities of practice
13:30 The Balboa Elementary model: one full grade level out every day
14:00 The Yale research finding that stopped superintendents cold
15:30 What actually moves student achievement: competitive wages and time
16:15 Affordable housing as peace of mind, the missing layer in teacher time
17:45 BRAND NEW: The Regional Housing Finance Authority
18:15 What if we built affordable housing around under-enrolled schools?
19:30 40% of community college students are housing insecure
20:00 Bond money, votes, and a vision for families setting roots in San Diego
21:00 How to follow the initiative and access resources as they're published
21:45 Next episode teaser: Dr. Benjamin Freud, The Green School Bali

🎧 New episodes every Monday & Friday with bite-sized Wednesday reel bonus content.
📧 Connect with me if you’d like a thought partner to help you cultivate curious learners who advocate for what they believe in.
🎵 Music: Benjamin Wahl

Next Week: Dr. Benjamin Freud, Head of Upper School at Green School Bali, challenges everything we think we know about education, from the dangers of "global citizenship" as a mission statement to why rubrics and standardized assessment are fundamentally at odds with how learning actually works. 

When coaches, teachers, administrators, and families work hand in hand, it fosters a school atmosphere where everyone is inspired and every student is fully engaged in their learning journey.

Transcript

Olivia: [00:00:00] Welcome back listeners, if you missed part one of my conversation with superintendent Fabiola Bagula, pause this episode. Listen to part one and then return to this conversation. How do you reduce a billion dollar budget deficit without sacrificing the people who make schools run? In part two, Fabi pulls back the curtain on the financial strategy, the community partnerships and the bold regional vision behind San Diego Unified's Affordable Housing Initiative. Fabi shares a second initiative, so new they haven't even launched the website yet. This is what emancipatory leadership looks like in action.

This is Schoolutions, the podcast that extends education beyond the classroom. A show that isn't just theory, but practical try-it-tomorrow approaches for [00:01:00] educators and caregivers to ensure every student finds their spark and receives the support they need to thrive. 

Welcome back to Schoolutions, part two of my conversation with Dr. Fabi Bagula. Uh, in part one, Fabi shared about her origin story and what helps her show up every day for the students, for the community that she's serving. As a superintendent, of San Diego Unified School District, part two of our conversation, we are going to go in depth with the Affordable Housing Initiative that San Diego is putting into place for the educators and employees that help the schools run. Fabi, welcome. I am so excited to jump into part two of our conversation. 

Fabi: Same. Me too. 

Olivia: Yeah. Let's start off with that idea in part one, you talked about, you know, San Diego Unified is in a budget deficit. How do you [00:02:00] reduce a budget meaningfully?

Fabi: That is a really good question because it's a really tough process. There's a couple of things that needed to happen. The first one is I wanted a team of people. So, um, I did not want a finance department or just a superintendent. I wanted, um, a slice of almost, um, the whole purview of the organization to come together.

Um, and so we literally call it the budget review team. They meet on a weekly basis. It's from human resources to facilities to instruction. Like I wanted it to encompass everybody because I needed folks to hold the full organization and be able to understand that a cut here will have a domino impact to something that maybe we didn't see. So that was one. 

The second thing is I needed a team to look under every sofa cushion. So like, like we're going to interrogate how we spend our money where it is and understand what we do, because this is [00:03:00] such a big place. It sometimes it feels like there's automatic decisions, um, being done. And so that was, that was the, the root of the thing.

The other piece is, I don't, I don't like to talk cuts before investments. So we first talk about how are we spending our money? How are we investing in our, in our learn, in the learning of children? How are we investing in making sure they achieve and the supports that they need? Um, how are we making those investments first? What are our goals? How much are we spending? And then it becomes, okay. How do we do this now? 

I've been trying to build, um, and I've been using, uh, David Tate's, uh, book Conscious Accountability. I've been trying to build a system of accountability, so I'm getting closer and closer to having a return on investment from every department so that when we start making decisions that are financial, we can actually say, well, this intervention yielded some great results for students. This one, not so much. So it becomes more about the investment and the strategy and [00:04:00] not about people. Um, what I noticed that there, there was a lot of identity around my department, my budget, my people, and then if that got cut, then there was a lot of hurt and anger and pain. 

So we have to kind of remove ourselves to be like, no, we're actually about a unified system. And this particular strategy did not yield the results that we wanted for students. So that's the strategy that we'll no longer use. So we still haven't gone to that part yet. Um, but we're working towards that because I don't, uh, I mean, budget cuts are - hurt. Uh, we, I don't ever wish it on anybody. Um, for the last couple of years I've avoided, uh, both school cuts and classroom cuts. Um, but it's getting closer and closer to the classroom. And so this was the first time where I actually had to convene principals and say, what cut makes sense for you? Because I actually do need to touch your schools now. 

Olivia: Yeah. 

Fabi: Um, and they gave the feedback that they needed to give. Um, and so I just followed what they said would be best. And again, not [00:05:00] best as in best case scenario because it's not, but at least they gave the feedback and input instead of me telling them what they were going to cut. 

Olivia: That idea of investing first and having that asset-based mindset of forward thinking, sustainability again, um, and then going to strategy that either impacted students well or didn't have the impact we wanted. It, it offers the broader perspective, I would say. And I also want to revisit a point that this affordable housing initiative is not using any budget funds, any taxpayer dollars, which is phenomenal. So what are I, I'm going to ask you to boil it down. What, what is this process or what are three pieces that a district would have to have in place in order to replicate what you are doing?

Fabi: The first piece, um, is a very thoughtful, progressive, forward-thinking board. [00:06:00] That is extraordinarily, um, necessary and I happen to have a really great board. And two, well, three very, very active board members that are very passionate about housing, um, that can speak in circles when I'm in there, like, oh, they know more about this than I do. Um, but one of the things that I love is that their willingness of saying we can do something more creative and it's within our, our power to do so. So that's the first thing. 

The second thing is strong relationships with our labor unions. Um, we have, uh, seven different labor unions here, and so we want to make sure that this, um, not only supports all of our colleagues, um, but them at the table and saying, oh, we're going to actually be allies in this because there needs to be an understanding here. 

And then the last one, I'm gonna say community, um, because there are a lot of, you know, not in my backyard, uh, sort of conversations. And so, um, I know that by taking this building, um, that's, uh, office building and converting it into housing is going to have an impact on this community. And so there was community [00:07:00] meetings with neighbors here that, you know, expressed. But also their concerns, but also their excitement, um, for it too. So we got a little bit of both. Actually. One of my favorite public comments was make sure there's a dog park 'cause we all have dogs and we love it. You know, so I feel like we were trying to listen to everybody, but I think those are three really important, um, groups of people.

I hope that I, I began my conversation with you saying how human centric this job is and human centered. And so again, when I, when you ask that question, all three were groups of people that are important to make sure you're attuned with. 

Olivia: Yeah. And I'm going to beg of you, Fabi, that you write or document this process for all of us, because what you are doing is groundbreaking. And it, it needs to be documented somehow, somewhere. And you are a prolific writer. I love reading, um, everything you write, so I I'm going to ask that you do that. 

Fabi: We are, um, [00:08:00] I have a drafty-draft going because I have a great facilities team. And so, um, he actually helped lead, uh, a lot of this and is very knowledgeable about the ins and outs.

I mean, there's terms that developers were using that I was like, I've never heard that term before. Right. But he does. And so our facilities team, again, our board members, like this was a big team effort. Um, and I love that we were in partnership. And so we have, I call it a drafty-draft. I have a drafty-draft of the process because I think it's replicable and I think more school systems across America, given the economy, given the housing and security, uh, given the ability for us to retain our, our students and our teachers, um, because we are seeing, uh, lower enrollment across our schools. 

Like how might we support, um, not just our schools, but quite frankly, societies. We have the real estate. Um, so we could potentially do something really magnificent for our city, and that's what we're trying to do. 

Olivia: I adore as [00:09:00] well the reflections that you're putting on social, um, they're very calming and deep and authentically you. What does the term emancipatory leadership mean to you?

Fabi: So, um. I want to be a part of developing that leadership theory. Um, I think, I think it's out there already as a leadership theory, but I, I, I did write an article and the funny thing, Olivia, is that yesterday I was asked if I would, um, contribute that chapter, um, to a textbook. 

Olivia: Yes! 

Fabi: It's crazy that you asked me about this. Um, I believe that any sort of leadership, especially in education. Should develop the conditions for people to actually co-lead with you. Um, and so there was a quote, um, it was, I believe from Ayanna Pressley that said, um, the people closest to the pain should be closest to the power. And so, I'm going to say that at every school, the people [00:10:00] closest to that community should hold that power of what that school needs and looks like.

And so I know we're a very large district. I mean, I have close to 200 schools, um, but my geographic regions are very different. And so what you haven't seen from me as superintendent or even as deputy superintendent, I, I haven't had a large initiative where I push out everything's the same at every single school. Um, there's enough to make decisions appropriate for the personality, uh, of the neighborhood, but with enough, uh, boundary to keep it, uh, sort of stable across the system. Does that make sense? 

Olivia: It does.

Fabi: Because, um, because I believe emancipatory leadership means that, that I hold the responsibility as a leader, and I think leadership is a verb. So I think everyone can be a leader from students to parents to teachers. Um, and the responsibility to actually change the conditions for, uh, for the children that I chose to serve. 

Olivia: I, I want to [00:11:00] also think about if there are educators in your system or any system that feel powerless that I don't have control over housing or policy or funding, what would you say to them?

Fabi: I, I am going to say that, so I had a reaction to that question because I'm not seeking power. So I, I'm not seeking power to change those things. I'm seeking influence. I'm seeking allyship, I'm seeking community. Um, because I think there's a mutual responsibility here. And what I hope is that people know they have voice and they have agency, and they have the ability to build community, to drive that change.

Um, if I was seeking power, then I, I, I would assume that I can potentially say one thing and everything comes true. And we all know that that's not how life works. 

Olivia: It's not. 

Fabi: Um, but what I can create is I can create a culture that says we see a problem or we see a change that we want to lead. Um, how might you and I work together and what are, who are the other people [00:12:00] that would wanna join us in like actually rethinking what we might do with this? And so I'm a big believer in time. And so, uh, I think the most expensive thing that I've said as an initiative is, can we give principals time with each other, um, to set up communities of practice in small enough groups where they can have deep conversations and with self-selected groups so that they want to actually be together.

Um, so I am, I, we have that strategy going on with our principals and they've actually told me that some of the best professional learning structures that they've seen, so an experience. So, um, I'm, I'm really proud of that, but I believe in that time, and that goes back to emancipatory leadership. I don't need to be out there leading it. It can be a shared responsibility and shared leadership across the system. 

Olivia: Fabi. I also wanna linger with a moment. I interviewed you a bit ago when you were in a different role, um, with San Diego City, uh, San Diego Unified, and you said something to me. I still think about all, all, all the details of our conversation. I remember [00:13:00] when you were principal of Balboa and you thought a lot about our time at Marshall and how we were flooded with professional learning experiences. And then you shifted to Balboa as a, I'm pretty sure as a teacher, but then also as a principal and something you offered, um, as an investment or an opportunity was, I think it was like Wednesdays you carved time to be able to process learning and collaborate with the teachers. Is that memory accurate? 

Fabi: So yes and no. 

Olivia: Okay. 

Fabi: So, um, the way that we spent our money as principal is, I, I'm like, it's gonna go back to time. 

Olivia: Yeah. 

Fabi: So, um, I'm gonna send you a, a research study when I was at Yale, um, a professor that has been researching, um, education for many years, he worked for the Center of Education Leadership, came and spoke to us. And he actually said, he's like, do you know that there's no longitudinal study [00:14:00] like in the last 30 years that professional development has impacted academic achievement of student and everyone was aghast. Because when you talk to superintendents or principals, they're like, we need more professional learning.

And so then of course it was like, well, what does, and he said, competitive wage and time, and so I'm gonna go to that time. So when we were teachers at Marshall, we got great learning, but it was relentless. I would take a learning and then I had to go back and teach. There wasn't a time for me to like sit down and plan a lesson and think, how did you plan this? Can you come observe like the time to actually study it? And so how we spent our money at Balboa was every single day there was one grade level that was out the entire day. 

Olivia: That's what I remember. Okay. 

Fabi: Yes. And so teachers had a full six hours of time, um, and we called it both our response to intervention time and also our PLC time.

Um, and what was really beautiful is at the beginning I was, we were a little nervous about having the structure because sometimes people are like, wait, what am I supposed to do [00:15:00] all day with who, where's my prep? Um, but after a couple of years of that, whenever we made budget decisions, they were like, do not remove that, that that number one is the time that we need with each other, um, to, to not only plan our lessons, but actually to move a whole team forward.

And we got to the point, 'cause we did it year after year after year. The PLC structure has a rubric, and so every June we would go through the rubric and our goal was to get to action research. Olivia, when we got tax and research, we got there for three years. The last three years I was there, I saw the most pedagogical shift I had ever seen from a whole system. And the academic achievement too. And so I keep thinking about what I just heard at Yale. I was like, competitive wage and time. Time to honor the educators before us to give them the time to actually plan thoughtfully and with colleagues was like beautiful. So I'm trying to do that with principals. 

Olivia: Yeah. 

Fabi: Um, still, still continuing [00:16:00] with that same tradition.

Olivia: Yes. Yeah. And that's what it reminded me of and that moment in our conversation, I think it was. My gosh, like six years ago. I, I go back to that moment with you all the time because what you're doing, and, and I'll wrap here, what you are doing with this affordable housing, you're also creating peace of mind because it doesn't matter how much time we're given, if we're clouded with stress or worry and not knowing how we're going to survive.

That time cannot be focused. So that's a whole other layer you're adding to your care and you're tending as leader of this very large district that, yeah, affordable housing is just another way to really make good use of our time. Um, Fabi, if we want to learn more about this initiative, what is the best way to [00:17:00] access resources?

Fabi: So I, I'm still, like I said, I'm, I'm writing the process. I'm write, I want to write it in a way that's replicable because I really think it will be replicable across. And I've already talked to a couple of superintendents, um, from both Texas and from Minnesota. 

Olivia: Good. 

Fabi: About how they might start thinking through this. And so once it's, once it's written down, I will send it your way, but I'm gonna try to publish it as much as possible so it's replicable. But I gotta tell you about the other thing that we're doing that's connected to this. 

Olivia: Yeah. 

Fabi: So this is employee housing. Like this is retention of employees, investment in employees, peace of mind, like getting the best possible educator we can for our children. Um, but what's also happening across all of our system, and I see this in national headlines, is we're closing down schools because of low enrollment. Now I'm gonna sit again and say, San Diego is beautiful. People wanna live here, but it's very expensive. And so I have a lot of schools that are very small. Um, and, and what I see my other colleagues, uh, in the periphery of San Diego do is they're starting to close schools.

Um, [00:18:00] and so I am, don't want to close schools, so myself, my board, myself and the chancellor of community colleges, we got together and we talked about housing for our families and for our students. And so we just launched a regional housing finance authority. And so we're in, we're just in the beginning stages where we're setting the vision and the mission that we hold.

Um, but we come from it from two different angles. So he's coming from it with, um, I believe the statistic, and I might get this wrong, is community college students, about 40% of them are housing insecure. And so he's trying to think like, how can I continue to support my students so that they can graduate and get their degrees and finish whatever they're trying to do?

And I'm thinking I have lots of schools, some of them under-enrolled. How might we, what if instead of closing those schools down, we build affordable housing around them so people can bring and have children and have families, and then walk to their community school. Like, what would happen if we did that instead, um, as a, as a long-term solution and [00:19:00] really give back to our, to our city. So we joined forces. We have a board. We are starting, like I said, we're, we're barely starting. I believe. Uh, the next meeting is gonna be about setting up a website. 

Olivia: Okay. 

Fabi: Um, but it is very important for us, so I'm not just talking about colleagues, employees of San Diego Unified, but a long-term vision of making sure that families are able to set roots in San Diego as their home and then be able to contribute, uh, to, to the city. So both are happening at the same time. 

Olivia: That's magnificent. Where can we get more information about these initiatives? 

Fabi: So we're gonna have some information on our website, but like I said, it's uh, the fir the it's drafty-draft. 

Olivia: Yeah. 

Fabi: So let me publish that. Uh, and then the other one is barely its inception. Um, as a matter of fact, like I said, we have a meeting about the website, um, and that will, once it's published, I can also send it your way. 

Olivia: Perfect. 

Fabi: Uh. Um, but more people need to know that we're doing this. Um, this will require, uh, bond money and vote. Um, not, again, nothing to do with San Diego [00:20:00] Unified. We don't have any taxpayer money in it. Um, nothing that I'm, we're giving our time, uh, to this. And so, um, I'm, I'm, I'm taking time to be a part as an EXOFFICIO member of the board of the Regional Housing Finance Authority. But, um, I think long term it's going to be great for our city. 

Olivia: I do too. Thank you so much, Fabi. Take care. 

Fabi: Thank you. 

Olivia: Dr. Fabi Bagula is proof that when leadership is rooted in community creativity and a fierce long-term vision, there is no problem too structural to reimagine. I'm sure this conversation moved you the same way it did me. So share it. Share it with the school leader, a policymaker, or anyone who believes that people who show up for our children every day deserve to be able to afford the city that they serve.

And if you want to see Fabi's affordable housing process documented and replicated across the country, follow San Diego Unified and stay [00:21:00] tuned. She is writing it all down. I will tuck links in the show notes as more information becomes available as well. 

And coming next week on Schoolutions. If you've ever questioned whether education is truly preparing young people for the world ahead, this conversation will really make you think. Dr. Benjamin Freud is the head of upper school at Green School in Bali. He challenges everything we think we know about education: from the dangers of global citizenship as a mission statement to why rubrics and standardized assessment are fundamentally at odds with how learning actually works. Ben makes a passionate case for reimagining schools as living, community-rooted ecosystems. We're learning and doing our inseparable, and where preparing young people means embracing radical adaptability over measurable outcomes. It's a conversation you'll be thinking about all week long. 

Schoolutions Podcast is [00:22:00] created, produced, and edited by me, Olivia Wahl. Thank you to my older son Benjamin, who created the music playing in the background. You can follow and listen to Schoolutions wherever you get your podcasts or subscribe to never miss an episode and watch on YouTube. Thank you to my guest, Dr. Fabi Bagula, for showing us what emancipatory leadership looks like in action. 

And I'd love to hear from you. Reach out to me at oliviawahl.com if you'd like a thought partner to help you cultivate curious learners who advocate for what they believe in. Tune in every Monday and Friday for part one and part two of my guest conversations with the best evidence-based, classroom-ready strategies that you can apply right away to better the lives of the children in your care. Your 60- second bite sized piece of learning from our conversation will be waiting for you on Wednesdays to share with a colleague. Take care and thank you for forever getting better with me. See you next [00:23:00] week.