Bargaining Update: Will District Do The Right Thing?

District Well-Positioned To Agree To Most of Our Contract Demands–Will They Do The Right Thing?

San Diego Education Association’s member led bargaining team, and our broader membership are currently in the midst of successor contract negotiations. These negotiations were preceded by our grassroots member bargaining input sessions held at over 140 schools and programs last year and where members prioritize our bargaining agenda. This process takes place every few years and involves a complex negotiation process between the district and the union.

This bargaining process kicked off last year when we saw the victory of a 4.5% one-time bonus paid throughout this year to SDEA members. This bonus was intended to not only help with recruitment and retention, but to also help members blunt the effects of inflation. However, our fight for an ongoing wage increase continues.

SDEA proposed a total of $147 million in improvements over the next two years. The improvements proposed by members are focused on enhancing working conditions for educators and improving the educational experience of our students. The majority of the proposed improvements would be invested in raises for educators. Members proposed a 10% raise for each of the 2022-23 and 2023-24 school years. To give you a sense of the scale of our wages, a 1% increase for SDEA members costs a little more than $7 million. Add to that the fact that principals, school police, and classified employees all have “me too” clauses for wages in their contracts that are tied to our raises, and that number goes up. But there are also significant investments in elementary teacher preparation time, class size, and the maintenance of our industry standard-setting healthcare agreement included in our contract campaign.

Members also proposed doubling elementary preparation time in order to better withstand all of the additional work that educators are dealing with. Programs like elementary preparation time provide enrichment classes for the students while the classroom teachers get their preparation time—and they are expensive. Our elementary preparation time proposal when fully implemented would cost a bit over $12 million dollars per year. However, the good news is that the District will have the funding to support a big chunk of these added costs thanks to the recent passage of Prop. 28 that will bring additional music and arts to our elementary schools. Which is why SDUSD agreed in concept to double elementary preparation time at a bargaining session in late February. 

Prop. 28 isn’t the only new funding stream for the District. Thanks to historically high investment in school budgets by the State of California, SDUSD’s general funds budget is anticipated to increase by about $105 million this year—and that’s an on-going increase! Additionally, we’re expecting another significant increase for the 2023-24 school year as well. The time is now for the District to seriously invest in educator pay for us to be able to recruit the best and brightest educators to our schools.

Our union has also proposed investing in reducing class size for physical education, and TK ratios to name just two areas. Given the historic investment in schools by the state, it’s critical for SDUSD to replicate that investment in our classrooms. TK teachers are reporting a need to reduce staffing ratios given the younger age groups the District is currently enrolling.

Last, but definitely not least, just this week we were able to lock in a multi million-dollar tentative agreement to maintain our fully paid healthcare benefits. This is a HUGE win for educators as we remain the only large school district in the county with fully-paid healthcare benefits.

The chances of winning the contract our students and educators deserve increase significantly based on the actions taken by each and every member who steps up to a site picket and other contract campaign actions. This is truly a collective effort – what will you do to support it?