SCUSD Trying to Break Teachers Contract

Reposted from       Majority,  July 08, 2019

The Sacramento School District is trying to set a dangerous precedent of breaking contracts
By Katie Ferrari

Sacramento teachers have been fighting their district to get their contract implemented for nearly two years. Their struggle puts them on the frontlines of contract enforcement. If the district gets away with breaking the law and not honoring the legally binding contract, it sets a dangerous precedent for other districts and employers across the country.

David Fisher, president of the Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA), says that the Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) “feels like [the teachers union] got too good of a deal…because we were too well organized, so now they’re reneging.” He points out that “other districts that have signed agreements that are going to be costly would like to have the precedent of a district like ours to be able to break a contract based on ‘inability to pay’ or budget problems, because if they are successful here, they can be successful in Oakland, LA, or anywhere else.”

District vs. the Union: A Play-by-Play 

In November 2017, teachers won a groundbreaking tentative agreement with major concessions from the district three days before they were scheduled to go on strike. The three-year contract included three annual 2.5% raises, the first of which was retroactive, dating back to July 2016. The union also won an additional 3.5% raise in the 2018-19 school year for mid-career teachers to keep experienced teachers from leaving for higher pay in neighboring districts. Fisher says that mid-career teachers in Sacramento “made anywhere from $10-18k less” than nearby districts.

Most significantly, teachers proposed a way to fund the smaller class sizes and more student supports they were demanding. They would switch their healthcare to a less expensive pool and funnel those savings back into classrooms. 

Nearly two years have passed since teachers won this contract, but it has still not been implemented fully. Instead, the district has done everything it can to renege on the contract. It has manufactured budget crises by hiring 18 new administrative positions (at an estimated cost of $3 million) despite a decline in enrollment and undertaking a $6 million vacation buyout for top administrators. 

Honor the Contract, Avoid Insolvency: The Path Forward

Honor the Contract, Avoid Insolvency: The Path Forward SCTA

How to resolve the budget crisis !

The Sacramento City Unified School District approved 102 layoffs Thursday evening as it continues to struggle financially and contends with a possible government takeover. 

The district’s Board of Education unanimously voted to authorize the layoffs, which will affect only certificated employees and 77 of which will affect teaching positions. Most of the teachers who face layoffs were hired less than a year ago, district spokesman Alex Barrios said.

The district will eliminate a total of 178 full-time positions, Barrios said, but only 102 employees will be terminated as other positions were removed through attrition.

Among those who will be laid off include the district’s only visual and performing arts coordinator and its only GATE, or Gifted and Talented Education, and AP, or Advanced Placement, coordinator, board President Jessie Ryan said.

Read more here: https://www.sacbee.com/news/local/education/article230238729.html?#storylink=cpy

The Sacramento Teachers Strike

Jeff Bryant

Much like other teacher actions that have occurred across the nation, Sacramento teachers are demanding changes to their salaries, reduced class sizes, and increases in school support staff including more nurses, psychologists, librarians, and program specialists. But unlike other teacher walkouts, what’s happening in Sacramento is a replay of what they thought they had already won.
 

“We thought we had an agreement when we threatened to strike last year,” David Fisher tells me in a phone conversation. Fisher is the president of the Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA), which threatened a walkout in November 2017 of the previous school year.
 

“We were motivated by what was happening in RedForEd movements elsewhere,” he recalls. “We had everything lined up [in preparation for the strike] including having parents organized and having meals ready for the kids” who were going to miss school lunches.

The strike was averted when the union and district administration came to an agreement and signed a new contract in December 2017. Specifically, the three-year contract included an across-the-board pay increase for teachers. Salaries for the district’s teachers are below state averages and rank fourth from the bottom when compared to 14 other comparable districts in the state, according the Sacramento Bee.

Congratulations to UTLA and the People of Los Angeles

Start at 15 minutes.

Today we all have more spring in our step because the members of the United Teachers Los Angeles ended their strike yesterday and ratified their new contract with the Los Angeles Unified School District.

It’s a good day for public education—a paradigm shift, thanks to UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl, the other UTLA officers, the bargaining committee and UTLA members.

One contract can’t change decades of disinvestment, but this agreement reorders priorities. It makes a clear commitment to invest in L.A.’s neighborhood public schools and to provide the resources and conditions necessary for teachers to teach and for kids to learn.

The agreement provides:

• Lower class sizes—immediately in 2019-20, with more improvements every year after. 
• A nurse in every school five days a week, and a teacher librarian in every secondary school five days a week. 
• Investment in community schools. 
• A pathway to charter moratoriums and/or caps. 
• A 6 percent pay raise with no contingencies. 
• Hard caps on special education caseloads and release time for testing.

I am so proud of the hard work, dedication and courage of UTLA members and their leaders. They made this victory possible. And their commitment to Los Angeles’ parents and students resulted in unprecedented support from the broader L.A. community. More than 80 percent of people in Los Angeles supported the strike.

At its heart, the L.A. strike — like those last year in West Virginia, Oklahoma, Colorado, Arizona and elsewhere — was about confronting years of disinvestment and scarcity in education, and prioritizing public education as an opportunity agent for all children.

Teachers Win a Tentative Contract in Los Angeles

Teachers Win a Tentative Contract in Los Angeles.  Union members vote today!
Progressive Organizing for the LA Teachers Strike
https://www.thenation.com/article/los-angeles-teachers-strike-utla-organizing-solidarity/