Sacramento Teachers Picket Outside Schools In One Day Strike Amid Budget Crisis
Teachers strike outside McClatchy High School on April 11, 2019.
Andrew Nixon / Capital Public Radio
Sacramento teachers and school employees are striking on Thursday in order to pressure the city school district to fully implement a deal they made back in 2017, labor leaders say.
The Sacramento City Teachers Association, the union representing 2,500 teachers and employees, is organizing the strike. It says the picket is not over salaries, but instead because school administrators aren’t following through on a promise to fund better classroom staffing.
David Fisher, president of SCTA, says the union agreed during contract negotiations in the fall of 2017 to switch employee health coverage to save the district money, but only if it spent the freed-up money on reducing class sizes and other student services.
“We've been trying to get these services for students for over a decade,” said Fisher. “Our ratios of school nurses, school psychologists, counselors and even class sizes are the largest and the most atrocious in the area.”
The Sacramento City Unified School District denies that class sizes are a problem. Spokesperson Alex Barrios says the school district has a massive $35 million budget hole, and it needs any savings garnered through an employee health plan change to help close the spending gap.
Barrios says almost half of the budget deficit could be remedied by switching employee health benefits.
“[School] programs are at risk if we cannot find savings in other areas,” Barrios said. “In order to find those savings, we have to work with our labor partners. We have to all work together and we have to make our priorities saving our schools from a state takeover.”
Sacramento teachers received an across-the-board 7.5 percent salary increase as a result of the 2017 agreement. The district says it spends 91 cents of every dollar on salaries and benefits, and it claims this is more than the average in other districts.
Emotions are sky high among people who run Sacramento city schools. Last Thursday’s board meeting was packed with parents and teachers concerned about the district’s massive cash flow problems. Board members like Christina Pritchett teared up.
“My heart hurts for all of our students, and everybody that is going through this with us,” Pritchett said.
At the meeting, board members and the public heard presentations about areas of the budget that could be slashed, such as sports, music and student centers that help children with suicidal CONTINUE READING: Sacramento Teachers Picket Outside Schools In One Day Strike Amid Budget Crisis - capradio.org
