As always seems to be the case, we are experiencing peaks and valleys on the roller coaster of public education. Through our collective organizing efforts last school year with thousands of SDEA union educators mobilizing to fight for the schools and communities our students deserve, we won a historic new contract with significant salary increases that places us in the top tier of districts in San Diego County. We also protected our fully-paid family health benefits that are the gold standard in our region. On top of that, we were able to make our work in the classroom more manageable by winning improvements to elementary prep time, removing private school assessments off the plates of school site special education staff and ensuring that early childhood and elementary educators are paired in every TK classroom.
And yet, after concluding the disruptive process of balancing staffing at school sites through fall excessing, and despite our best efforts to address staffing shortages through our bargaining wins, we still continue to experience numerous vacancies in our schools. Vacancies impact everyone in school communities across the district as we all have to pick up the slack and stretch ourselves thin to make sure student needs are met. The greatest number of vacancies are in positions serving the highest need populations like students with disabilities, 4 year olds in TK and multilingual learners. Educators in these positions also tend to be early career educators who are at the lower end of our salary schedule.
This year’s monumental 15.5% salary increase resulted in a $16,647 raise for those at the top of our salary schedule. For someone at the bottom of the salary schedule, however, the increase was $7,865 – less than half of what our most experienced educators received. While the raise represents significant progress for all educators, it is also imperative that we do more to attract and retain early career educators who are most acutely impacted by the housing crisis facing our region. San Diego was just ranked the most expensive place to live in the country and two in three San Diegans are considering leaving due to the unsustainable cost of living.
We have the opportunity to address the staffing crisis that deeply impacts our schools through reopener bargaining with the district starting in February 2024 that will cover 4 key areas: wages, professional growth and development, transfers and housing. Starting in November, SDEA Site Leadership Teams will be convening Reopener Bargaining Union Meetings at every school in the district. This will be a chance for all SDEA members to weigh in on the priorities that will guide our bargaining team’s negotiations with the district over our contract for next school year. Our bargaining demands will be informed by your input and brought for adoption to the SDEA Board of Directors and Rep Council through our union’s democratic process.
Our union educator movement is only as strong as the degree to which members at our schools are engaged and ready to fight as a unified force to support our SDEA Bargaining Team. So let’s all do what it takes to build on the success of last year’s contract campaign and start this school year’s Reopener Bargaining Campaign with SDEA Union Power!
