What Aguilar’s critics miss: Sac City schools are far better off with this superintendent
Almost three years have passed since Jorge Aguilar took over the Sacramento City Unified School District and despite inheriting a fiscal mess and a history of labor strife that predates him by decades, the son of Fresno farmworkers is still standing. The district Aguilar leads is moving forward while facing long odds.
On Wednesday, SCUSD announced it had secured free internet service to neediest kids in the district. That’s at least 6,000 needy families who had reported to district officials that they had no internet service at all and could not participate in distance learning since COVID-19 closed schools in March.
Just before the shut-down, voters approved Measure H – a bond that will provide up to $750 million to be used for construction, reconstruction, rehabilitation and replacement of school facilities – some more 50 years old and in dire need of repair.
Every other county education bond, or fund to help kids, was rejected by Sacramento County voters except the one passed for SCUSD.
Putting Measure H on the ballot was a bigger victory than anyone realized on March 3, the day of the California primary election. Just 10 days later, the district shut down because of the coronavirus. Were Measure H on the coming general election ballot in November it would be facing the daunting task of seeking the support of taxpayers battered economically by the pandemic. Instead, the funds are secured and district kids will benefit from learning in safer buildings.
By the end of April, SCUSD announced it had served a million meals to district families at more than 30 school sites. Local chefs such as Patrick Mulvaney have helped prepare some of the meals.
The district graduation rate has increased to 85.9 percent, a 3 percent increase over the prior year. The district now pays for free SAT testing for all juniors and seniors, a big move considering 70 percent of roughly 40,000 students qualify for free and reduced lunches.
And the district distributed 25,000 Chromebooks to students so they can participate in distance learning while campuses are closed. District teachers jumped into distance learning under trying circumstances. The looming state budget deficit and what follows are the next challenges.
Agular was hired for this
But, why state all of these accomplishments and milestones? Because they represent momentum brought about by stability in leadership and that is precisely why Aguilar was hired to run SCUSD in July 2017.
“Our district has long suffered from a revolving door of superintendents, and that has only yielded short term thinking and organizational incoherence that (Aguilar) is trying to help our community clean up,” said Lisa Murawski, an SCUSD board member.
A state audit of SCUSD cited leadership instability as one of the major reasons why SCUSD is in financial trouble to the tune of a looming $19.1 million budget shortfall in fiscal year 2021-22.
Previous state audits had issued similar warnings for more than the last 12 years. Aguilar is the sixth SCUSD superintendent in that time and those previous warnings were not addressed amid constant changes in leadership.
They also weren’t addressed in Aguilar’s chaotic first few months on the job when the district faced a potential teachers strike within weeks of his arrival in Sacramento.
Some superintendents get a welcoming committee when they arrive at a new job. Aguilar got a firing squad – give us a pay raise or we go on strike.
Not yet appreciating how intense labor relations were in SCUSD, Aguilar disastrously went along with a teacher pay hike brokered by Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg. It represents the low point of Steinberg’s time in office.
Why? Because the district couldn’t afford it, should have never done it. Hindsight is easy for all of us who supported the pay hike or were ignorant of its implications. We can say “I told you so” now. Unless we spoke up loudly in opposition at the time, all of us share in that mistake.
It was a continuation of bad decisions made by Aguilar’s predecessors and it counts for a lot that Aguilar has said he won’t go along with irresponsible budgeting anymore.
He has told me that even if it costs him his job, he’s dedicating the rest of his time in Sacramento to following the state audit that recommended that all district employees take pay cuts and switch to less expensive health care plans to close the nearly $20-million gap.
Even though his budgets have been rejected by the Sacramento County Office of Education – because Aguilar hasn’t been able to get his labor partners to bargain – he has refused to gut programs for kids to close the gap.
It bothers him deeply that some of the district’s more well-heeled schools have parents who can raise funds to send their kids to Ashland, Ore., or Disneyland, or Washington, D.C. But the majority of district kids, who are also Latino and African American students, can’t go on those same trips.
Aguilar and his board of directors have worked on improving college readiness. According to the district, prior to 2017, just 24 percent of students entering their senior year at the district had an SAT score on file. By 2019, that number had jumped to 89 percent, according to the district.
Under Aguilar, the district has emphasized exposing students and their families to free applications for federal financial aid, or FAFSA. Since 2017, the district said that 72 percent of students complete the FAFSA form compared to 47 percent before 2017.
Aguilar has entered into data-sharing agreements with Los Rios Community College District, Sacramento State, UC Davis, and UC Merced. That data is used to identify students needing additional outreach so they can broaden their choices of college options.
Breaking down his salary
Internally, Aguilar has shored up district finances by hiring Rose Ramos, a new chief business officer. Even Dave Gordon, county schools superintendent, and who has rejected some of Aguilar’s recent budgets, praised the move as a step in the right direction.
“Rose Ramos brings a breadth of knowledge and experience,” Gordon said. “She is a very hard worker, a quick study and has strong technical skills. She is a great hire.”
And that’s just a partial list that has been noticed by community leaders.
“He is very low key, but once you converse with him you see the breadth of his experience,” said Carolina Cabias, co-chair of the Latino Alumni Association at UC Davis and a board member of the Sacramento Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. “In (almost three years) you can start to see his accomplishments.”
Cabias and other Latino leaders in Sacramento have been concerned about the numerous attacks aimed at Aguilar in communications made public by the Sacramento City Teachers Association.
Lately, those attacks have focused on Aguilar’s pay. According to the district, Aguilar’s base pay was $295,000 when he started in 2017. Beginning in January of 2020, it increased to $316,011.
That is a lot of money but it’s not the highest in the region. According to figures compiled by The Bee and corroborated by the Sacramento County Office of Education, the highest paid superintendent in the region is Christopher Hoffman of Elk Grove Unified. In fiscal year 2018-19, Hoffman’s salary was $351,385.
Aguilar runs the second biggest district in the region and his base salary is essentially the same as the superintendents at Twin Rivers Unified and Natomas Unified, both smaller districts. A figure floating around social media suggested that Aguilar’s pay was approximately $414, 000. The district says that is his total compensation, including health and welfare benefits, PERS and health care for him and his family.
But the total compensation of the superintendents in Elk Grove and Twin Rivers are still higher, and Natomas is about the same. Aguilar’s compensation only rose recently because he took his first raise in three years, even though his contract says he could have received one each with a positive review – which he has received each year. And for the first the time in three years, Aguilar began taking medical benefits through the district, officials said.
In that context, this salary business isn’t very nefarious at all.
He is paid the going rate for superintendents. The terms of Aguilar’s contract were approved in an open-session school board meeting back in 2017.
If you put his salary in the context of the budget deficit, well, let’s do the math: Lop off $100,000 from Aguilar’s salary and you still have a deficit of $18.9 million.
Isn’t that the issue at hand here? And aren’t complaints about Aguilar salary distractions from that?
“Why would you continue to attack him?” Cabias said. “Why?”
Bottom line is stability
The bottom line here is that Aguilar is needed stability. The district has momentum. And district parents, many of whom have stepped up to help teach their kids during the coronavirus shutdown, don’t have the time or the patience for anything but voices promoting stability to keep the district healthy.
Our kids deserve nothing less. If we’re going to hold Aguilar accountable for anything, it should be education related. For example, he should figure out a way so the kids who got Chromebooks can keep them. He should figure out a way, once for all, for district kids to have access to the internet beyond a six-month window.
“Those who don’t have internet access at home suffer demonstrable, educational harm,” said Lloyd Levine, a former state assemblyman and an expert on the digital divide.
How is Aguilar going to close the achievement gap? How is he going to create more opportunities for district kids to compete in the workforce? His board of directors should be holding him accountable on those issues every day while ignoring political distractions.
Right now, Aguilar has the best school board the district has had in many years.
“In my almost eight years on the board, he’s been the best superintendent we’ve had because he really cares about kids,” said board member Christina Pritchett.
“It will be our community’s loss if we do not support (Aguilar) to succeed,” Murawski said. “Our district, our students and our community desperately need the stability and continuity. I believe we are fortunate to have him at the helm. He deserves our support.”
This story was originally published May 7, 2020 at 12:05 PM.
