Striking teachers, staff rally outside Sac City Unified district offices

Sacramento schools closed Wednesday morning as teachers and school staff went on strike and stood at picket lines at about 80 campuses across the city.

Many of Sacramento City Unified’s 2,800 teachers and 1,800 classified school employees from SEIU Local 1021 planned to stand outside of their empty, closed schools wearing red, and holding signs calling on the district to negotiate. It’s the second teachers strike since 2019.

SEIU, which represents classified employees, went on strike in solidarity with teachers over health and safety protocols during the pandemic and staffing shortages which have left hundreds of students without a full-time teacher.

“Ironically we are walking out to make sure every student has a teacher in the classroom,” said Sacramento City Teachers Association President David Fisher.

11:30 a.m.: Picketers gather at district offices

Teachers, bus drivers, custodians and other school staff members gathered outside the district office to continue their rallies.

Many parents and students showed up at the Serna Center in support, with hundreds of people lining 47th Avenue picketing and encouraging passersby to honk in support.

Activity tables were set up for children at the rally. Several children passed through the slime station while others played beats on Home Depot buckets alongside drummers.

But not all parents supported today’s strike.

Caroline Nasella said she doesn’t have a clear understanding of what the Sacramento City Teachers Association wants.

“It is also overwhelming as a parent because it seems that there is so much vitriol between the union and the district that ‘good faith’ negotiations seem impossible,” Nasella said.

On Wednesday, her daughter was home watching television instead of being in class at Phoebe Hearst Elementary.

“We are lucky because we can work from home, but it is still disruptive and I sympathize with parents who have to work outside of the home.”

Parents concerned about learning loss

The strike brings extra stress and questions from Sacramento City Unified parents, many of them scrambling to arrange child care amid uncertainty about the strike and its duration.

“Is it a one day strike? Is it until negotiations are reached? Are they sending (homework) home for the kids to do?” said Shavaun Diallo, whose children attend Albert Einstein Middle and James Marshall Elementary schools. “We have no information.”

Diallo added that her son is worried about his final grades, and whether the strike will leave him with too little time to improve them.

“It’s like these kids have been through so much over the last two years, with COVID and distance learning, and now you’re back in school and we have the strike,” she said.

Christina Thompson, a state worker who supports the strike and whose two children attend Father Keith B. Kenney Elementary School in Oak Park, showed up to the picket line Wednesday morning, and asked teachers how her son can do schoolwork online.

9:50 a.m.: Strikers prepare to meet at Serna Center

Picketers at McClatchy High and other schools began to disperse from SCUSD campuses just before 10 a.m., preparing to head to the Serna Center district office on 47th Avenue for a planned 11 a.m. demonstration.

Chris Voisin, an economics and U.S. history teacher at McClatchy who is in his 18th year with Sacramento City Unified, said the district has been “negligent” as he and other teachers started wrapping up outside the Land Park campus.

“Teaching’s a triangle: parents, students and teachers. And the district is support and facilitators,” Voisin said, drawing a circle around the triangle with his finger.

“But they drive things down from the top like it’s some multinational corporation where the CEO just dictates what happens. Education is not like that.”

10:10 a.m.: Teachers on stagnant wages

Kindergarten teacher Karina Ayala, 31, stood outside Father Keith B. Kenny Elementary School in Oak Park Wednesday morning holding a sign that read, “Education is a right. Better schools are worth the fight.”

Her main concern is staffing. The school has not had a physical education teacher all year, she said, and substitute teachers rarely pick up the phone when called to come in to the school. Teachers have to teach PE in their prep time.

“We don’t have the certification to teach PE, and we lose our prep time,” Ayala said.

Ayala, who has been a teacher at the school for five years, makes $59,571, as of 2020. That salary is not enough to afford to buy a home in Sacramento on her own in the competitive market, she said, so she lives with her parents.

Shiniece Junious, a special education aide who works 30 hours a week, also cannot afford to buy a house on her salary of $22,028 as of 2020. She rents an apartment in South Sacramento, but every year the landlord increases the rent. The last increase was this month. Meanwhile, she has not had a raise in at least five years, she said. She will have to leave the district soon if she does not get one.

“I don’t want to work two or three jobs just to make ends meet,” said Junious, 50, who has worked for the district since 2005.

School Board member Lavinia Grace Phillips pulled over as she drove by the school on Martin Luther King Boulevard to voice her support.

“I just want to let y’all know I’m out here with you guys,” said Phillips, who was elected to the board in November 2020 with support from the teachers union.

A fire truck drove by with its lights on, and the group cheered.

Christina Thompson, who has two children who attend the school, walked across the street from her house to ask the teachers how her son can log in to do school work online. She was supportive of the cause.

“Teachers never get paid enough,” said Thompson, a state worker.

Her boyfriend took the day off work so he could watch the kids, but the couple is not sure what they will do if the strike drags on.

“I don’t have someone to watch them indefinitely,” she said.

9 a.m.: Picket lines at McClatchy High

Roughly 100 picketers, most in red SCTA shirts and holding signs that read “Keep your promises to our kids,” were marching up and down the sidewalk in front of C.K. McClatchy High.

Ingrid Hutchins, who teaches in the district’s independent study program, said that program has 571 students on its waiting list “who have had no education this year” due to the severe staffing shortages.

“So when we say that students are back in school (from the pandemic), there are students back in school — but there are many students who are not back in school.”

Dozens of cars driving past on Freeport Boulevard let out a steady stream of honks. A garbage truck blared its horn at one point, eliciting cheers. One teacher standing near the sundial statue at the front of the school played a ukelele.

“Our parents are experiencing what we’re experiencing, and we just want them to know that this (strike) is a last resort,” Fisher said outside the school. “And it’s hopefully a short-term disruption so that, in the long run, we can all improve the educational situation for our students.”

Picketers focused many of their chants on the superintendent: Jorge “Aguilar has got to go” became a common refrain.

“Yesterday, the administrators voted no confidence,” Fisher said. “Who’s left?”

Fisher was referencing a letter sent Tuesday by the union representing Sacramento City Unified principals, which included a survey showing that its members want to take a “no confidence” vote on Aguilar.

8:36 a.m.: Steinberg urges sides to make deal

Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, who helped break a stalemate between teachers and the district in 2017, urged both sides to “do everything possible to end this strike immediately,” saying students have missed enough school and their education and mental health are at sake.

In a statement Wednesday morning, Steinberg said that the parties needed to “commit to some form of working together” to keep the strike from affecting students.

“Unless and until the leaders who possess real power commit to some form of working together, nothing will change, and our city’s children will bear the brunt,” he said. “Many will say, it’s impossible for the two sides to come to a resolution. The distrust and dislike is too deep. Friends don’t need to make peace. Adversaries must.”

“Every moment of great tension is also a moment of possible breakthroughs. For our kids, may this be that moment.”

Steinberg brokered the deal between the teachers and the district, including hosting them at his home in November 2017, during a dispute that ultimately led to a raise for teachers reported as 11% over three years. The two sides, however, couldn’t agree on how to implement the raises and ended up in arbitration again.

Negotiations at standstill

After two days of bargaining, negotiations were fruitless after Sacramento City Unified School District and both unions failed to resolve their disputes.

The teachers union and SEIU are calling for a cost-of-living wage increase through the district’s COVID-19 spending plan as well as other incentives intended to increase staffing. Teachers have spent months teaching extra classes, and corralling students into cafeterias and gymnasiums for meager group instruction, as a severe substitute shortage took hold.

Teacher shortages have been so widespread that school district officials said they couldn’t staff classrooms with enough substitutes to keep schools open during the strike. In 2019, campuses remained open during the teacher strike.

The district offered several proposals including a 2% raise, several bonuses, and increased pay for substitutes and nurses.

But mediation ended Tuesday evening with no deal. Reports of Tuesday’s mediation are conflicting.

The teachers union says the district would not accept the recommendations from a Public Employment Relations Board panel appointed. The union said district representatives did not show up to a virtual bargaining meeting, and instead presented their proposal through the mediator.

According to the district, the mediator “conducted a series of meetings with the district and SCTA via shuttle negotiations.” The district also said they learned that the teachers union concluded mediation through media reports.

The teachers say that’s because the district representatives were not on the call.

Fisher: Strike was a last resort

School board President Christina Pritchett said leaders are very concerned about the district’s 42,000 students, their families and the community being affected.

“The current proposals to increase compensation are a reflection of what we can currently afford in our budget,” Pritchett said. “We urge SCTA to return to the bargaining table and give these proposals to increase employee compensation due consideration.”

Fisher, the teachers union president, said the strike was a last resort, adding that the unions are ready to meet with the district on Wednesday. In an email to the community, the district said it’s negotiations team is ready to continue and has offered to continue bargaining throughout the day on Wednesday.

No date or time has been set.

This story was originally published March 23, 2022 at 8:11 AM.