Twelve school districts in Sacramento County function as a single unit. Why not Sac City?

Twelve other school districts in Sacramento each function as a single school system. Sacramento City Unified School District and its teachers do not. They must.

We make this plea on behalf of more than 40,000 Sacramento children whose futures are on the line.

We write of the current dispute between the Sacramento City Unified School District and the Sacramento City Teachers Association, who are in disagreement over how to best implement distance learning during the COVID pandemic.

Absent an agreement over the next several hours, school will start Tuesday with the district legally authorized to implement its plan requiring minimum hours for direct student-teacher interaction. The union is threatening to direct teachers to disobey the district’s directive and freelance their approach school by school, teacher by teacher, and student by student.

Settlement of the dispute over the distance-learning plan has now been referred to the grievance and arbitration process. In the interim, there must be a single system and set of rules for the entire district, as is the case with every other school district in Sacramento County. Neither the students, parents, nor community can accept or tolerate 70 different approaches to the already difficult necessity of distance learning. In the meantime, we must all follow the law and implement a single set of rules and standards that allow children and their parents to know what they can expect.

There is a better way than continuing this dispute. The district and union can and must find a way to work out their remaining differences and come to an agreement. Students, families, and teachers desperately need stability and clarity as this unique and challenging school year begins.

The current dispute centers on what is needed for all kids, but especially those kids who are already too far behind.

The district insists on standards and regular assessments to ensure that all children, especially those in the lowest-performing schools, are getting the maximum attention during these months of less than ideal distance learning. The district wants a specific minimum amount of time for direct teacher engagement with their students.

The teachers want maximum flexibility to teach how they think is best during a time where their physical presence with their students is not possible. They reject specific minimum time requirements for direct teacher engagement with their students.

Fact finding and arbitration may ultimately decide the balance. But every other district in Sacramento County—12 in all—has managed to agree on a distance-learning plan.  Why can’t the parties in Sac City collaborate and act like one system, as all the other districts in the county do?

Given a spirit of collaboration, there are undoubtedly many ways to compromise and work this out.

Clearly, these collective bargaining issues are ultimately for the parties, mediators, fact finders, and arbitrators to resolve. But year after year, dispute after dispute, superintendent after superintendent, there has been no willingness to cooperate, to collaborate, and to create the one coherent system the district so badly needs.

This continued failure also remains a core issue for all of us who live in and love Sacramento. These are our kids and our families. The community stands ready to do everything we can to help all our kids. This impasse cannot continue.

Darrell Steinberg, Mayor of Sacramento

David W. Gordon, Sacramento County Superintendent of Schools