Sacramento school administrators say they’ve ‘lost confidence’ in district as strike begins

As Sacramento schools prepare for a strike this week, the union representing their principals put more pressure on the Sacramento City Unified School District by releasing a survey showing its members want to take a vote of “no confidence” in Superintendent Jorge Aguilar.

In a letter to Aguilar and the Board of Education, the union United Professional Educators said it “had lost confidence in the district’s ability to provide effective leadership.”

The union represents principals, vice principals and various administrators.

The letter came one day before the Sacramento City Teachers Association and SEIU Local 1021 scheduled an “open-ended” strike over teacher staffing shortages and COVID-19 protocol.

United Professional Educators representatives said that senior leadership in the district is “unsustainable” and that their members can “no longer be the proxies for what the district cannot accomplish through appropriate negotiations at the bargaining table with other labor partners.”

About 71% of United Professional Educators members who responded to the survey said the union should engage in a vote of no confidence in Aguilar, Aguilar’s cabinet, and the Board of Education.

The union listed its members’ frustrations in a 14-page letter that included detailed survey results reflecting how more than 100 administrators, 91% of the union, feel about the district and the looming strike.

About 91% of administrators in the union said they feel they could not safely open their campus on Wednesday if the strike takes place.

But 58% said they do not think that the administrator union should support the teacher and SEIU strike.

What Sacramento principals say

In the letter, administrators shared many of the same concerns that teachers have: they are spread too thin, pulled in classrooms to teach and meetings to run.

Since the pandemic, the letter states, United Professional Educators members have done their administrator jobs all the while serving as substitute teachers, yard duties, mask enforcers, computer distributors, contact tracers, special education aides.

In a statement to The Bee, Aguilar said school site leaders have worked “tirelessly” through the pandemic.

“I share UPE’s commitment to maintain a collaborative and mutually respectful relationship, and am listening to the concerns of school principals,” he said. “We hope to work together toward restoration of trust in order to continue serving the needs of our Sac City students.”

Based on their survey results, nearly half of the administrators said that at least one school vacancy has been unfilled for more than a school year.

One administrator shared in the letter that they have had eight to twelve vacancies all year long.

“I don’t feel supported given the needs of the community I serve,” read the survey. “We have left our most intensive sites stranded on an island.”

“Principals have been encouraged to attend multiple Zooms simultaneously,” the letter read. “This is appalling and unacceptable.”

More than two-thirds of those surveyed said they are either actively looking for jobs outside of the district or considering retiring early. Several principals and school administrators have left their jobs mid-year, citing “intolerable” work conditions.

‘The children in our city lose every time’

But Nate McGill, principal at Ethel I. Baker Elementary, said that administrators should have entered the school year expecting many of these challenges. He is not a member of the administrator union.

“No one becomes a site leader to do easy work,” he said. “This, combined with the current labor dispute, is largely adult-centered narrative, and obscures the fact that no one has faced more obstacles to success than our students and families. Unfortunately, what we spend our time talking about is adults in our system.”

The union’s 11 executive board members made some recommendations to the district, reevaluating the current negotiations model, engaging in audits to identify inefficiencies that slow down hiring practices, and student-centered instruction.

Many of the administrator union members said the workload, which can turn into 12-hour days and working weekends, has negatively affected theirhealth and the success of their students.

The letter shares narratives from several principals and administrators, documenting increased student anxiety and defiance, low student attendance, and some schools are only now catching up with special education assessments. One administrator said they do not have time to support their students, and there is not enough staff to support the students.

“Leadership by press releases and constant legal wrangling just creates winners and losers,” read the letter. “The children in our city lose every time.”

This story was originally published March 22, 2022 at 3:12 PM.