Gov. Newsom, here’s a coronavirus moment to meet: Help Sacramento teach our kids at home
A lot of people are very impressed with how California Gov. Gavin Newsom has responded to the coronavirus outbreak. And why not?
As always, Newsom looks great. He sounds great. There is never a hair out of place. And only this dude could wear out the same phrase over and over again – how we need to “meet this moment” – without getting trashed for it.
Newsom’s heart is in the right place and his political and show biz instincts are big league. And let’s face it, Newsom looks far more presidential than the current occupant of the Oval Office.
But in some fine details of how we need to move critical jobs to our homes is where Newsom is found wanting.
For example: How does a fiscally strapped public school district teach economically challenged kids at home when many of those kids don’t have technology, and when the rights of their teachers are covered by collective bargaining?
How do you deal with that, Gov. Newsom? You haven’t really specified.
Meanwhile, one wonders if the governor is aware that an urban school district in the City of Sacramento is in limbo – it has not begun formally teaching kids at home yet – because negotiations for how to do so are grinding on between the teachers union and the district.
And one of the reasons they are grinding on is because both sides are trying to interpret Newsom’s directives without much consensus.
You have people confused, Governor. And in the meantime, inner city kids are just sitting around – they aren’t learning – while more well-heeled kids are.
A class issue
Yeah, it’s really happening like this is in the Sacramento Unified School District. Or rather, education is not happening at SCUSD. Teachers have not yet been trained how to teach kids remotely.
Why? Because negotiations are dragging on this week between the district and the Sacramento City Teachers Association. Because they negotiated for five days last week just to get an agreement for teachers simply to call kids to determine what kind of technology they had.
Yes, that is not an exaggeration, Governor. It took five days to agree on teachers calling students.
What’s so upsetting about this is that beyond Newsom’s heroic proclamations of “meeting this moment,” the truth is, we are not meeting this moment for kids who need us.
Every day SCUSD isn’t teaching kids is a day that inequality is perpetuated in our educational system.
How? Because kids like the governor’s own children are already learning in elite private schools.
The governor knows, or he should know, that kids in Sacramento’s venerable Catholic schools are already learning online. So are kids in suburban public school districts, etc., etc., etc.
Some of SCUSD’s wonderful teachers have stepped up on their own and have been reaching out to kids. This is laudable and appreciated greatly by Sac City parents like me.
I love my teachers and I love how their commitment to our kids is strong whether school is in session or not.
Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
But I think we can all agree that love is not enough here. We need to have a formal distance learning plan in place and teachers trained so that instruction is available for all.
That fundamental mission of public education is not guaranteed for all kids right now in SCUSD and that, Governor Newsom, is a failure to “meet this moment.”
Substitute teacher pay in shutdown?
Why is this happening at SCUSD?
In negotiations this week to hammer out how SCUSD teachers will teach kids at home, SCTA is pushing the district to continue paying substitute teachers even if they aren’t working.
There are roughly 600 substitutes in the district, according to SCTA. Unlike virtually all other local districts, substitutes are covered by their union within Sac City Unified.
David Fisher, president of SCTA, told me that “fewer than 50” of those subs are continuing to be paid. District official put the number at 25.
Why are these subs paid even though they are not working when others are not? Because at the time schools closed on March 16, these subs had long-term assignments.
The rest of the substitutes – roughly 500 or so, but Fisher couldn’t provide hard numbers – were designated as “day-to-day subs.” They got paid for days they worked.
Nothing in the labor agreement between SCUSD and SCTA specifies the district must continue to pay day-to-day subs in the event that the district is closed.
Fisher said that no one could have anticipated a pandemic would close the district. And he points to Newsom’s executive order that calls for districts to continue paying employees.
In an SCTA press release, Fisher said: “This is a cruel, callous policy that cheats our substitute teachers during an unprecedented crisis…By profiteering during a deadly public health crisis, SCUSD administrators are profiteering during a deadly public health crisis.”
OK, I’m going to comment on Fisher’s choice of words in this press release in a bit, but first some context.
While Los Angeles Unified and a handful of other districts are paying day-to-day subs while schools are closed, no other district in the Sacramento region does.
At Natomas Unified, where they don’t pay day-to-day subs and where they have a teacher’s union, the district has already hammered out an agreement with teachers and are preparing to teach their kids online and provide technology to kids who lack it.
But SCUSD school kids must wait for a formal plan on distance learning in these extraordinary times because SCTA is attacking SCUSD and Superintendent Jorge Aguilar for not agreeing to pay day-to-day subs.
Fisher points to Newsom’s order as proof that SCUSD should. But if you read Newsom’s order, it’s not specific. It says pay employees, but it doesn’t delve into the complex details of how substitutes are used.
If SCTA is holding out and stalling instruction for kids over day-to-day subs, then shouldn’t Natomas be paying them, too? And shouldn’t every other district in the region and state?
Because most school districts in California do not.
This is where Newsom comes up short. While his rhetoric is soaring, his details are slim and, in this case, inner city kids in Sacramento are not being formally taught across the board because SCTA wants day-to-day subs to get paid even if they aren’t working, and because of Newsom’s order.
State education guidance needed
A lot of kids, and a lot of SCUSD parents - including me - are very upset that our kids are cast adrift right now over a labor dispute.
How is that “meeting this moment?”
Now back to Fisher’s language. It’s beyond disappointing that we are still seeing this type of rhetoric as our community tries to contain a pandemic.
This is an emergency and we’re still stuck in the same old fight at the expense of our kids..
A distance learning plan needs to be hammered out now, without delay, so teachers can get trained next week and so they can begin formally teaching online on April 13.
Since the last day of school was March 13, that’s a month our kids have lost. That’s unacceptable.
I talked to Aguilar and he has good reason for not wanting to pay day-to-day subs.
He’s committed to continuing to feed needy district families, including during the April 6 spring break, because community pain is so high.
He is committed to acquiring technology for kids who don’t have it because basic equity demands that.
These expenses and others were not budgeted and yet the district is going to pay them.
The district and SCUSD could hammer out a distance learning plan while continuing to talk about day-to-day subs.
The kids need instruction now.
In the meantime, the day-to-day subs can apply for unemployment. Aguilar said some day-to-day subs may even get hired to teach during the district closure.
Fisher told me that the day-to-day subs issue is not “a deal breaker” to getting a distance learning plan in place.
Great. Let’s do it.
“Sac City Unified is determined to do what is necessary to provide the services our students desperately need, especially while schools are closed. We are inspired by committed educators who have reached out to students to check in on their well-being and other needs,” Aguilar said.
“Our students don’t have time for any delays.” he said. “We need to implement a learning plan given these unprecedented challenges that results in academic instruction and other supports now.”
Gov. Newsom: Can you help us out?
This story was originally published March 26, 2020 at 2:33 PM.
