While Sacramento City Unified School District schools were still closed Friday due to teachers, nurses, bus drivers and other district staff continuing to strike, that didn’t stop district parents from setting up a family day — outside district superintendent Jorge A. Aguilar’s Serna Center office.
The family day is part of a longer sit-in parents like Amber Verdugo have been staging since Wednesday evening, the sixth day that staff have been on strike. Later Friday evening, they plan to hold a movie night, and have started an Instagram and Facebook page for visibility.
“We are just making it clear: These are the people that are being affected, these kids in here,” said Verdugo, whose two sons attend A.M. Winn Elementary. “The schools are supposed to be serving these kids, and I feel like the school board and Aguilar have forgotten what their purpose is. So I thought, let's put it right in front of them.”
Visitors to the second floor of the district center might have inadvertently stepped into a game of Throw Throw Burrito. Or bear witness to an on-and-off game of Twister.
But even if a kid or two darted down the stairs to grab a foam burrito that went too far, the first thing floating downstairs is the noise: guitar-playing mingles with parents engaged in conversation and kids laughing and running around.
Two unions representing district staff, the Sacramento City Teachers Association and SEIU Local 1021, called a strike on March 23. Union leadership says staff are striking due to the district’s handling of a staffing shortage that leaves them overworked, underpaid and in conditions that put them at even greater risk for COVID-19.
Both unions are currently in labor negotiations with the district. On Thursday, six out of the eight SCUSD board members signed a letter sent to the teachers union leadership asking them to call off the strike so schools can reopen while negotiations continue.
“Because collective bargaining agreements have long lasting impacts to our district and to our employees, it takes time to get the concepts and language right,” the letter reads. “We know both parties want a speedy resolution, but it’s been seven days of missed classes. We cannot allow ourselves to be stuck like this—we all suffer.”
SCUSD parent Amber Verdugo stands on the second floor of the district office during a sit-in on Friday, April 1, 2022.Andrew Nixon / CapRadio
But Verdugo doesn’t plan on leaving until the district inks agreements with the two unions.
She’s also a history student at Sacramento State whose focus is protests and revolution. Sit-in protests have been one of the most effective forms of nonviolent protest, according to Verdugo, which is why she suggested a sit-in on Wednesday to several parents she knew.
“I said, ‘Who wants to just go in and sit our butts down in those chairs and not move until something happens?’” she said. “So five o’clock Wednesday afternoon, we showed up when they were having the rally — the front doors were locked, but we waited for an opportunity when we could sneak in and make our way up here. We’ve been here since.”
Russell Taylor, whose wife has been teaching in the district for over 19 years, doesn’t plan on leaving the second floor of Serna Center, either. Taylor, his wife and son — also a SCUSD student — got there at 2 p.m. on Thursday.
“We wanted to create a way to make the parents’ and the kids’ presence known to the district,” he said. “My whole family spent six, seven days on the picket line. And, you know, I was just frustrated with the lack of action from the district.”
Whatever agreement the district and teachers union come to could have a big impact on Taylor’s healthcare, another reason he’s at the sit-in. The district’s current proposal would cover 100% of costs for a HealthNet plan, which Taylor says better covers his family’s needs, for 2022-23 and 50% of the out-of-pocket costs for the following year.
SCUSD is planning to switch to Kaiser as its main healthcare provider to help balance its budget, since the district remains under fiscal oversight from the Sacramento County Office of Education after it came close to being taken over by the state in 2019.
Currently, about 43% of SCTA members are using HealthNet, a district FAQ says.
“For us, personally, it’d be thousands of dollars a month that my wife would be paying out for our healthcare,” he said. “There’s a lot of older and retired teachers in the district that are out of the area and don’t have access to Kaiser. It’s important to everybody.”
Longer-term, Taylor hopes that the two unions’ new contracts will help combat the staffing shortage. Both the SCTA and SEIU Local 1021 collective bargaining agreements expired in 2020, meaning base salary schedules have not been updated since then.
“If we can get the contract fixed, then it will allow people to focus attention into revitalizing the school system,” he said. “We’re here for the fight for the long-term.”
The district and unions will continue their separate negotiations heading into the weekend.
You can find more information about what led up to the strike and resources available to parents right now here.
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