Distance Learning Impasse Could Plunge Sacramento City Schools Further Into Fiscal Crisis, County Superintendent Says
Almost all of Sacramento County’s thirteen school districts have a distance learning plan in place during the pandemic — agreed to by both teachers and administrators — and are in solid financial shape.
But there is one outlier: the Sacramento City Unified School District.
That’s according to Dave Gordon, the Sacramento County Superintendent of Schools, who provides fiscal oversight and other guidance to schools from Elk Grove to Elverta.
In a recent interview, Gordon told CapRadio that the impasse between SCUSD and its labor partner, Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA), could compromise the district’s ability to comply with education laws, and be a roadblock to reimbursement
In a recent letter to California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Tony Thurmond, the district expressed concern about teachers’ schedules that vary from the district, and that some are “either less than the required instructional minutes or lack the daily live instruction requirement under the law.”
The district confirmed to CapRadio that it faces financial penalties if it does not adequately track attendance and the amount of learning — live or independent study — that takes place among its 42,000 students.
CapRadio interviewed county Superintendent Gordon about the impact of the deadlocked negotiations over distance learning in SCUSD, and about the district’s long term fiscal viability. Below is a transcript of the interview, edited for length and clarity.
What is your role over Sacramento school districts?
We do fiscal oversight of all of the school districts. We don't oversee their instructional practices, but if asked, we would give guidance.
So the situation right now at Sacramento City Unified appears that the district is providing a set of directions and the teachers are providing, in some or many cases, different directions than the district. And the district really needs to function as one organization — not as a teacher-run organization and a district-run organization. So what seems to be going on now is not appropriate [and] not legal, most likely. And you can imagine the chaos that this is creating.
Can you tell me more about that? That that situation is not legal? What do you mean by that?
Well, the district is authorized to run its affairs and report to the state and account to the state CONTINUE READING: Distance Learning Impasse Could Plunge Sacramento City Schools Further Into Fiscal Crisis, County Superintendent Says - capradio.org