SACRAMENTO, Calif. — The Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) will return to their 2020-2021 school year on September 3 through an all distance learning model, though there is still much to be decided.
This comes as SCUSD and the Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA), the union representing teachers, failed to come to an agreement after their 17th labor bargaining session since the spring.
The two groups remain at odds over how much instruction time is necessary when starting the school year, testing, and special education. Some parents have shown frustration about the impasse.
The SCTA says their plan offers "Quality vs. Quantity," referring to longer instruction times and testing goals being proposed by the SCUSD officials.
"We know that spring was not true distance learning, but crisis learning," said Jorge Aguilar, superintendent of SCUSD. "We also know that it wasn’t nearly enough. We’ve made a commitment to our community that the 2020-21 Academic Year will be better."
Nancy Knowdell has two children who attend Sacramento City Schools.
“I was really hopeful that by this time, that the district and the union would have come to a clear agreement and everyone would be on the same page,” Knowdell said.
Sacramento County Schools Superintendent David Gordon says these decisions must be agreed on. Every other district in Sacramento County has finalized their plans, Gordon said.
“That’s not fair to the children, it’s not fair to the families,” Gordon said.
SCUSD and the SCTA are set to resume negotiations on Saturday. Meanwhile, the district has already distributed materials necessary to facilitate distance learning like Chromebooks and textbooks.
SCUSD has also launched a site to provide answers to distance learning questions for parents.
The district is holding a series of live distance learning webinars for parents all this week, the recordings can also be found on the district here.
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