The Bee endorses these two candidates for the Sacramento City Unified school board | Opinion

The Sacramento City Unified School District is in relative peace among parents, teachers and administrators. But like any honeymoon, it will end.

Hard decisions loom for the seven-member board on maximizing the education of the district’s 40,000 students with limited resources that are now disproportionately directed to some of the highest teacher compensation in the area. The high salaries frustrate efforts to find the resources to turn around the district’s Special Education program, as one example, which has been repeatedly blasted for failing its most needy students.

The high teacher compensation and the resulting spending priorities that have shortchanged programs such as special education result from a board dominated by candidates backed by the Sacramento City Teachers Association. That dynamic will not change in the November election, with two seats up for grabs due to departing incumbents.

For those seats, we endorse Victoria Vasquez in Area 4 and Jose Navarro in Area 3.

Vasquez is a graduate of the district and a parent of two daughters/district students. She has a wealth of first-hand knowledge and a leadership background..

Vasquez is chair of the city’s Parks Commission. In her grass-roots campaign, she has identified a key district weakness, a communication gap between principals and administrators/board members that can frustrate solutions to problems at the school level.

Vasquez faces small businessman Jennin “Jay” Martinez and community volunteer April Ybarra. Both are enthusiastic candidates. Ybarra, who is backed by the teachers union, has a solid command of district issues. Overall, however, Vasquez emerges as a fresh, independent thinker who will keep a focus on the challenging needs of a comprehensive education system.

In Area 3, Navarro has done his homework since a run four years ago for the same seat and is ready for the leadership role. Last time, his one issue of concern was teacher salaries. Navarro was running against Christina Pritchett in 2020, the incumbent, and he gave us no reason to choose him over Pritchett. This time, Pritchett is not running for re-election and it’s a much different race.

Backed by the teachers’ union, Navarro says he wants to focus on improving the district’s reading performance, given how sound reading skills are a foundation for advances in writing, math and science. His desire spend more money on hiring additional reading specialists will undoubtedly be tested with continual pressures on improving teacher compensation.

Navarro faces a challenger in Rolanda Wilkins, who seeks to strengthen the ties between community groups and the district to provide comprehensive services to the district’s at-risk students in particular. We wish there was a more experienced and knowledgeable candidate running in this race, but there isn’t. Between the two candidates who are running, Navarro seems best prepared to be a board member.

The district continues to suffer from profound inequities. Some schools with affluent parents drive large fund-raising efforts. The children in these schools benefit from experiences that kids at less affluent schools miss.

Real problems cannot be sugar-coated with talk of collaboration. Teachers have received sizeable pay raises in recent years and benefit from one of the most generous healthcare plans in the region. There is a chance that after this election, every member of the district board will have been endorsed by the teachers union - the Sacramento City Teachers Association.

If the lives of special education students in the district do not improve, and neither do math and reading skills for more students, those failures will be on the board members endorsed by SCTA.