Letters in Solidarity: Support Our Students - The Time is Now - We Can’t Wait!

As we write this, our NEA endorsed candidate Kamala Harris has lost the presidential election and this now puts the well-being of our most vulnerable immigrant and LGBTQ+ students at risk. In the face of this threat to our communities, we are inspired by the words of Shawn Fain, the president of the United Auto Workers union, who said that, “You can disagree with me and you can vote however you’re going to vote. But you cannot ignore our duty as a union to fight like hell for social and economic justice.”

As a fighting union and as part of the statewide We Can’t Wait coalition of education unions, we must be prepared as SDEA members to confront the forces of extremism head-on and accelerate our struggle for social and economic justice. We are doing this locally through maintaining the pro-educator, pro-public education majority on the SDUSD school board and reelecting our SDEA endorsed candidate Sabrina Bazzo. This was accomplished through the efforts of SDEA union educators who passed out flyers supporting Sabrina at schools in District A, canvassed door-to-door, text-banked to thousands of voters and made monthly contributions to keep our SDEA Political Action Fund strong.

Educators at Toler, Longfellow & other District A schools getting out the vote for Sabrina Bazzo.

Across California, we are seeing the impact of one-time COVID relief funds drying up that finally funded schools at levels that began to meet the needs of the largest population of low-income students in the United States. Without these additional funds and with California’s abysmal school funding in the wealthiest state in the country, this means that our schools are understaffed, educators can’t afford to live in the neighborhoods we serve and our communities are destabilized by harmful cuts that continue to be proposed as budget solutions.

It doesn’t have to be this way. California has the resources to invest in our schools and communities. We Can’t Wait for politicians to prioritize our students and support our schools. So we are coming together to organize and combine the power of unions across the state to win the schools and the funding that our students deserve. This starts in November with all SDEA members having the opportunity to vote to ratify our contract campaign bargaining platform that incorporates priorities developed through 150+ input sessions at schools and programs throughout the district. And as SDEA leaders, we are committed to fight alongside you and union educators from across California to win the demands in our transformational platform!