SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Children in the Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) are back in school after the district reached an agreement with teacher and employee unions.
Nikki Milevsky is a school psychologist and a vice president with the Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA). She also has two children in the school district.
“Everyone is very energized for getting back to school with our students (and) for accomplishing a fair contract for ourselves and all of our brothers and sisters in the classified staff,” Milevsky said.
She said she’s feeling a sense of relief now that bargaining has ended.
“I think our bargaining teams accomplished all of our goals in this negotiation. It was definitely frustrating it didn’t happen sooner, but we were happy to have gotten it done Sunday night so that Monday could return to school,” Milevsky said.
According to SCUSD, all teachers get an ongoing 4% salary increase year after year starting this school year. Additionally, teachers get 3% stipends for each of the prior two school years and a one-time payment of $1,250 for the current school year.
Plus, there will be no reduction in healthcare benefits.
“There were a lot of things that were driving teachers away from Sac City Unified. And we’re so happy to be able to tell those people who were going to leave, ‘Hey, you can stay. They’re not going to cut your benefits. There’s not going to be a cut in pay. In fact, there’s going to be a raise,'” said Milevsky.
Karla Faucett is the president of SEIU 1021, which represented all other school employees, like janitors and bus drivers.
“It’s bittersweet you know. It’s a step in the right direction, but if you’re going to take baby steps, we need to take a couple more great big giant steps,” Faucett said.
SEIU members also get a 4% bump in salary every year. They also get a $3,000 dollar stipend for each of the prior two years and a $1,000 dollar stipend for the current school year. Additionally, they will not see a reduction in healthcare benefits.
Even with the new bump though, Faucett says wages just aren’t competitive.
“Areas are stealing our drivers because if you can work here for $20, but you can go work in West Sacramento for $30, $31 or RT for $30, $32. You got to think about that. That’s huge wage difference,” Faucett said.
She said more will need to be done in coming years.
“For me, it’s a band-aid. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for everything we got but it’s still not there for what we need for our members,” Faucett said.
The next issue that will need to be worked out is how to make up for the nearly two weeks students missed because of the strike. If they don’t, the school district will face penalties in the millions of dollars.
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