Letters in Solidarity: 2025 Brings An Urgent Need for Solidarity
Wishing everyone a 2025 packed with joy and fulfillment for you and your students. Our hearts go out to all those impacted by the still unfolding wildfire disaster in Los Angeles. So many educator families and communities are facing terrible losses. During this difficult time, our union will come together to support one another. Please consider making a donation to the Disaster Relief Fund of our state union, CTA. This fund exists thanks to the generosity of CTA members who have made contributions to help colleagues in need.
Sadly, the incoming federal administration has politicized the wildfires and threatened to cut off support for disaster relief along with the rest of federal funding to California that represents a third of the state budget. This continues President-elect Trump’s push to retaliate against our state and our district for committing to support vulnerable students and families that will be targeted by the inhumane policies he has proposed.
As union educators, we must be prepared to defend our students, public education, and our rights against any attack whether at the local, state or national level. We solidified this commitment last month through the ratification of our We Can’t Wait contract campaign platform by an overwhelming 98% of the 4000+ SDEA members who voted in the election. The platform establishes three top priorities that will guide our bargaining and organizing in 2025: fully-staffed schools, improved educator pay and stability for our students and communities.
These three pillars of our platform are our statewide coordinated response to the crisis we are facing with the underfunding of public education in California and the uncertainty that accompanies the new federal administration. We teach in the wealthiest state in the country, yet we are failing to fully staff schools, pay educators wages that allow us to live in the communities we serve and secure resources and protections that all students need to thrive.
With the national and state political climates in mind, elected educator leaders from 180+ schools and programs from across the district voted at the January 2025 SDEA Representative Council to adopt the Ten Point Program to Support Our Students and Communities that will guide the development of bargaining proposals for our contract campaign. The Ten Point Program lays out our values around establishing welcoming, safe and nurturing schools where all students can focus on learning. We are ready as SDEA leaders to join our fellow union educators, families, students, staff and community organizations to generate the combined power needed to fight for and win the transformational priorities in the Ten Point Program and the rest of our platform. We Can’t Wait!
January 28: Rally in Support of Special Education Staffing!
Educators see the daily student impact of a lack of Special Education staffing, but it is clear that the District does not feel the same urgency to fix this crisis. Let’s show up in solidarity to urge the Board to settle SPED overages and to bargain like they mean it! We Can’t Wait!
Rally @ San Diego Unified Board Meeting:
- Tuesday, January 28th, 2025
- 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
- 4100 Normal Street
Organizing to support students at Alcott Elementary
The power of having a union contract is the power to advocate for our shared priorities and ultimately to have what we need to support our students. This takes a variety of forms:
- We make sure our union contract meets current needs by identifying collective priorities each time we come to the bargaining table to bargain our next contract. SDEA members are ready to go to the bargaining table this month with a platform built and ratified by members.
- We assert our contractual rights through the grievance process when necessary.
- Most importantly, we build daily solidarity within our communities!
Successfully addressing violations of our contractual rights is essential, even when the process takes time! Ideally, union members can also meet urgent needs quickly by organizing with their colleagues. See some examples of how fellow SDEA members used site-based organizing to solve immediate needs in their schools:
Alcott Elementary organized to get the prep time necessary to support their students!
This Fall, SDEA members at Alcott Elementary flexed their union muscle to support students with IEPs, and they came out stronger than before.
Alcott is a small school with just ten classroom teachers, nine of whom had more than 20% of students in the classes with IEPs. According to section 29.7.2.1 of the SDEA contract, they tried to create a support plan with the principal. They proposed multiple support plans but could not get the principal to agree to any of them. Some might have given up, but not these educators.
One option was to file a grievance over a violation of section 29.7.2.1 of the union contract. But Alcott SDEA members didn’t want to wait for the grievance process to run its course. Instead, they organized for a speedy solution.
First, union members had a union meeting to build consensus on a solution. They decided they wanted 15 prep days shared among the ten teachers.
Then they created a petition to the principal very clearly calling for 15 preparation days. 100% of the union members signed it. Instead of just putting the petition in the principal’s mailbox, all the union members marched up to the principal to deliver the petition as a group.
The principal couldn’t ignore them. He reacted by offering 2 of the requested 15 prep days (with the possibility of more, he said.) He said that was as much as the site budget would allow. 2 out of 15 didn’t sound good, so they didn’t back down.
A small group created a simple paper survey that asked one question: “Are you satisfied with the principal’s response?” It invited members to a union meeting on December 4, explaining, “If this problem isn’t resolved by then, we will review the survey results and make a plan of action.”
Guess what happened the day before the union meeting? The principal announced that he’d found the money in the budget to pay for 15 release preparation days! So instead of using the union meeting to plan the next action on the principal, they used it to celebrate.
Grievances vs. Organizing
While grievances are a formal way to remedy violations of our contractual rights and strengthen our contract in the long term, Alcott is an example of how organizing around shared priorities got results without waiting for the grievance process.
Have an urgent issue at your site that you hope to solve? Talk to your colleagues and bring it up at your next union meeting!
Want to join the SDEA Communications Team?
Are you interested in being more involved in union communications? Consider joining the SDEA Communications Team. This member-driven group will brainstorm ways to improve outreach, share site stories, and create content highlighting member voices.
The idea is to hold regular meetings and involve members and community partners based on their interests and capacity, even if busy educators cannot attend every meeting.
Our initial meeting for 2025 will be on Zoom on Tuesday, Jan 14, 2025 at 4:00pm to...
- Review results of the Fall 2024 Communications Survey
- Plan for upcoming actions
- Brainstorm for the future!
Invites with Zoom Link have been sent to everyone who expressed interest via the Fall Communications Survey, but you can still sign up!
Sign up for the SDEA Communications Team here!
Know Your Rights: Restorative Justice
Part of our contractual rights when it comes to Student Discipline is a Site Restorative Discipline Plan (per section 11.7) and access to ongoing training (per 11.7.7.) See more in the flyers below:
Many sites are currently waiting for information from the District regarding training that will be essential in effectively implementing Restorative Practices at the site and classroom level, so it is more important than ever that SDEA members understand their rights when it comes to Restorative Justice.
See more Know Your Rights flyers and resources here!
NEA Representative Assembly: Declarations of Candidacy
The 2025 NEA Representative Assembly will be held in Portland, OR, from July 2-5, 2025.
Declaration of Candidacy Forms are available online at cta.org/neara-declaration beginning January 6, 2025. Deadline to submit State Delegate Declaration of Candidacy forms is January 31, 2025.
See more information about the NEA Representative Assembly here!
CTA Member Benefits Web Series
There is a new web series available from CTA about the benefits available to all members. See the webinar options below and use the links to sign up:
Session #1
“CTA MB Breaking News: What’s the Scoop on Your Member Benefits?”
As the New Year begins, there’s breaking news from the CTA Member Benefits Department! Many members have set financial goals and we’ll be reporting an update on all the member benefits available. Your MB Reporters will be sharing what benefitsyou have, how to utilize them to stretch your dollar, and provide financial protection to you and your family. After attending this “news report,” you’ll have a better understanding and can share the “good news” with your fellow CTA members.
Wednesday January 15, 2025 4:30-5:30
Session #2
“More Month Than Money: Setting and Living Within a Budget”
If you set a goal to get your finances in order, this session is one you won’t want to miss. We’ll focus on setting financial goals, learning about various investment vehicles, tracking daily expenditures, creating a cash flow statement, and establishing a budget. Throughout our discussion, we’ll highlight many CTA and NEA MemberBenefits designed specifically with CTA Members in mind to help stretch your dollar. CTA Members will leave feeling confident with steps to get their finances on track.
Wednesday January 22, 2025 or Wednesday February 19, 2025 4:30-5:30
Session #3
“Generation Debt: Student Loan Forgiveness”
Suffice it to say with the SAVE Plan tied up in litigation, the election of a new Administration, and potential changes to the US Department of Education, student loans, are top of mind for many educators. CTA Member Benefits is here to share the most current information, help answer questions, explain the loan forgiveness programs, and introduce the NEA Student Debt Navigator powered by Savi, which will analyze members student loans and help facilitate the process of making qualifying payments. By attending this session, members will have a better understanding of the process of forgiveness, paperwork to be filed, and how to advocate for themselves to the loan servicers.
Tuesday January 14, 2025 or Thursday February 6, 2025 4:30-5:30
Session #4
“Retirement 101: Where do I even begin?”
You know planning for retirement is important…however, you don’t know where to begin, money is tight, you might be too busy, you have lesson plans to prepare, or maybe you hope to win the lottery. CTA Member Benefits can’t help you with lesson plans (and the lottery’s a gamble), but by attending this session, you’ll leave with a better understanding of retirement concepts, how to design your retirement plan, and be introduced to the CTA 403(b) Retirement Savings Plan. Plan Fiduciaries will explain how to open and fund a 403(b) to make sure you’re fully prepared for a financially secure retirement.
Wednesday January 29, 2025 or Wednesday February 26, 2025 4:30-5:30
The votes are in: We Can’t Wait!
Last week SDEA members finished voting on our We Can’t Wait bargaining platform. An overwhelming 98% percent of members voted YES to ratify the platform, which was built from bargaining input sessions at 160+ schools and programs and in collaboration with local and statewide coalitions. A platform with demands supported by union educators and our school communities is a platform that we can win! We will “sunshine” this platform at the January 28th SDUSD Board Meeting, which is the official notification that begins the bargaining process.
Final vote tally:
- 4448 total ballots submitted
- 4377 "Yes" votes
- 57 "No" votes
- 15 invalid ballots submitted (e.g., blank, both "Yes" and "No" checked)
SPED caseload grievances: An update & call to action
The District has finally responded to SDEA's union-wide caseload grievance.
This year SDEA filed a unionwide grievance because so many Ed. Specialists have caseloads over the contractual limits. This has been the case for years now, but going into this school year the District still had not responded to the grievance submitted at the beginning of last school year. After months of follow-up and conversations, the District has finally shared a settlement offer for a grievance settlement that addresses both years. The District is proposing monthly stipends based on the highest reported caseloads, ranging from $500 to $2000 depending on how many students were assigned.
Since it took nearly a year and a half to even propose a settlement to the 2023-24 grievance and ongoing staffing shortages have not improved, now there are two unresolved grievances related to caseload overages, for this academic year and last year. Surprisingly, the District included language that the same stipends would be used to preemptively address overages for the current 2024-25 school year.
*Note: The proposal contains references to an Exhibit A (a list of eligible members), which will be generated once the agreement is finalized. In case of discrepancies a Caseload Grievance Appeal Form will also be available. The deadline for that form would also be adjusted based on when we finalize an agreement.
SDEA has not signed off on this offer. It’s too little, too late.
This belated and insufficient offer does not address the urgent needs expressed by Ed. Specialists. The proposed structure of the stipends means that many Ed. Specialists would be getting less compensation as a remedy for being just as overloaded as they were in the past. Additionally, it took District leadership over a year to come up with this offer. This indicates that they simply do not share our sense of urgency to fully staff Special Education positions - a need that our educators and school communities feel acutely every day.
This is part of a bigger picture: An urgent lack of Special Education staffing.
SDEA leaders have heard over and over that while members absolutely deserve to be compensated for the extra work caused by caseload overages, their main concern is that settlement checks alone are not solving the problem of Special Education Staffing. Being over caseload impacts the ability to adequately serve our students, the District's proposed grievance settlement would provide extremely belated and shrinking checks to burned-out educators who are over caseload today.
Mark your calendar: Rally at the January 28th Board Meeting!
SDEA will “sunshine” our We Can’t Wait bargaining platform at the January 28th SDUSD Board Meeting - the official beginning of negotiations. This is also an opportunity for the District to agree to a fair settlement to our caseload overage grievances that better supports SDUSD students, and to show our strength in numbers. Through our collective action, we can make the Board feel that same sense of urgency: It’s time to fully staff our schools and demand concrete solutions to the chronic understaffing of Special Education!
- What: Rally at the San Diego Unified Board Meeting!
- When: Tuesday, January 28th, 2025 - 4:30 PM - 5:30 PM
- Where: 4100 Normal Street
- How: We’ll rally at the flagpole & walk into the Board meeting together!
Letters in Solidarity: We Are All Special Educators
We hope that everyone had a restful break and are energized for this last stretch with students in 2024 before we move into the new year. 2025 will bring new challenges for our union as president-elect Trump has threatened to cut off all federal funding to California public schools in retaliation for supporting vulnerable students and families.
11% of San Diego Unified’s budget comes from the federal government, which includes Title I funding for low-income students, Title III funding for immigrant and multilingual students, and IDEA funding for students with disabilities. We must be prepared as SDEA union educators to fight to protect our students amidst the chaos of a Trump administration that seeks to eliminate the US Department of Education, privatize our schools, and disrupt our students’ right to a high-quality public education.
Protecting high-needs students starts with taking proactive measures to address the chronic understaffing of Special Education in our district that is impacting all educators as we stretch ourselves thin to pick up the slack of ongoing vacancies. Despite the 15% salary increase that we deserved, fought for, and won in our last contract campaign, SDUSD still cannot find enough special educators to fill the growing number of vacant positions in our schools. Visiting teachers are hired to staff the vacancies, but cannot do case management that is then assigned to other Education Specialists who are already overwhelmed with caseload overages. This creates a vicious cycle where overworked educators leave Special Education, further exacerbating the staffing crisis.
The 17,000+ SDUSD students with disabilities (18% of total enrollment) can’t wait any longer for a solution to Special Education understaffing that is limiting the supports that we can provide to set them up for success. That’s why we advocated for a groundbreaking provision in the Early Retirement Incentive agreement to reimburse educators who agree to teach in Special Education positions for the cost of obtaining an Education Specialist credential. That’s also why the District needs to immediately agree to a fair settlement for our unionwide Education Specialist caseload overage grievance from last school year and provide hope to overloaded educators who continue to be case managing beyond contractual limits.
We are all special educators with the increasing population of high-needs students with IEPs in our classrooms. As the relentless special education staffing crisis continues year after year, we need to find solutions NOW when we see our students being underserved. The centrality of special education in our school system and our organizing is reflected in the We Can’t Wait contract platform that SDEA members are voting to ratify at all schools this month. As we move toward launching our contract campaign in 2025, we will be ready as SDEA leaders who have taught in special education and general education to fight alongside you to win the staffing that our students deserve!