SCUSD Observer
Time for the board to step up
By Lori A. Jablonksi
Sixty-seven teachers at C.K. McClatchy High School voted this week to overwhelmingly support the collective bargaining agreement between the district and Sacramento City Teachers Association.
I want to make sure I do my best to convey the general sense and mood as McClatchy teachers gave their approval to “donate” to the district over $1000 annually for the next two years to fund elementary class-size reduction and to establish a retiree benefit trust.
Teachers voted with no guarantee that the counselors we so desperately need at the middle and high school levels will return. And they did so without any word whether pink-slipped high school teachers would be back in the classrooms next year. One teacher called his vote a “leap of faith” that the Board will finally “get it” and start paying attention to the budget and actual spending, rather than just approve what the staff presents.
Another, a teacher with teens soon to start college, had tears in her eyes as she voted (actually, quite a few did). She told me that with her husband furloughed and the astonishing increases in the price of tuition she had no idea what she was going to do about her kids’ college future. This agreement, she said, would essentially wipe away what little discretionary income her family had left each month. (She noted too, as did several others, that at least with furloughs they could spend the day off at home…a bit of gallows humor perhaps in a terrible situation.) Nevertheless, she told me she voted for it as did over 90% of the McClatchy staff. Most concerning to me, however, was the overall sense of skepticism expressed that Superintendent Raymond and members of the Board of Trustees, truly appreciate what teachers agreed to do: make a significant financial sacrifice in order to repudiate the “race to the bottom” mentality that furloughs (teaching
