SANGER – The unity Sanger Unified School District (SUSD) and Sanger Unified Teachers Association (SUTA) share is limited solely to their respective names, according to SUTA President Stephanie Alvarado.
In her address to the SUSD Board at its Aug. 27, 2024 meeting, Alvarado set the tone of her remarks early by stating, “Our current discussions with the school district have highlighted a concerning pattern: a tendency to treat our staff not as the professionals they are but as school children in need of constant oversight and correction.”
Alvarado has been president of SUTA for the past six years. Before that she served as vice president of the union that boasts 725 members, which includes not just teachers but certificated staff – school psychologists, nurses, counselors, speech therapists and special education staff.
SUTA’s contract with the district terminated at the end of the 2023-24 school year. Alvarado said the district wants to maintain the status quo that has existed for the last 20 years – which, she said, reflects the language of the contract.
“They (SUSD) need to understand that we cannot have a contract that is 20 plus years old when the job has changed,” she said. “Education has changed. Students have changed. Why do you expect staff to continue working in the conditions from 20 years ago? It blows my mind.”
SAFETY AND OVERCROWDING
Alvarado described the latest round of contract negotiations with SUSD as an opportunity lost. Unlike in years past, this year was an open contract year, which meant SUTA and SUSD could discuss multiple articles of the contract.
“Normally, in a negotiation cycle, you’re limited to three articles,” she said, “and two of them are mandatory – wages and benefits.” Alvarado said SUTA’s negotiations team visited every school site last spring, before contract negotiations began, and spoke with union members about what they wanted to see in the new contract.
“After all that data was collected, the team spent countless hours writing proposals, looking at the contract language in other districts, trying to come up with ideas that would work for our students and staff,” said Alvarado. “After all of that, we came up with 38 pages we presented to the district.”
The district agreed to some changes, Alvarado said. But these changes reflected the status quo.
“Things we were already doing in the district,” she said. “For example, we have PLC (professional learning community) leads and they get a stipend for that position. So, they (SUSD) put that in the contract because they’ve already been paying it. Things like that they’ll accept.
Safety remains an issue where SUSD and SUTA remain at loggerheads. Alvarado said the level of violence in classrooms has significantly increased over the past five years. And the perpetrators are getting younger.
“Violence against fellow students and against staff,” she said. “They’re getting bit; they’re getting hit.”
When asked if the violence was primarily being committed by students with behavioral issues, Alvarado said, “That’s the kicker. Most of the staff doesn’t really know. Some of it may be because they’re young and they don’t really understand the structure of the school setting. A lot of it is coming from the (kindergarten) classrooms.”
Alvarado said the problem is twofold. SUSD’s special education population in the younger ages has grown significantly but without a commensurate increase in staff or facilities.
“The district is telling staff we don’t have any place for them,” she said. “You’ll just have to deal with it until we can find a placement.”
She said some students are autistic but they cannot be tested until a month into school.
“In the meantime,” said Alvarado, “these kids are throwing chairs or hitting other kids or biting the teacher or loping.” Loping is the act of running away from anyone who attempts to get the student to sit down.
The second problem is age. A student can enter transitional kindergarten (TK) at age four, provided they turn five by the end of the school year. Alvarado said these youngsters present a different area of concern.
“We have students coming in who aren’t potty trained,” she said. “It’s more than just kids hitting and biting. When did staff become responsible for changing diapers?”
When she spoke to the board of education, Alvarado brought up the issue of overcrowded classrooms and the district’s failure to understand the enormity of the situation.
“The district still responds with status quo,” she said. “Leading us (teachers) to believe that having 32 students in a kindergarten class or 34 students in grades one through six is what they think is best for the kids.”
At a recent school site visit, a first grade teacher told Alvarado, “I have 34 students in my class. What am I supposed to do?” A fourth grade teacher voiced the same complaint.
The fix? Combo classes.
“The idea is to combine overflow students from the two grades into another class. That’s how they get the numbers down,” Alvarado said.
“Do you think teaching one grade level is hard? Try two. When does the increase in workflow and negative impact on the quality of education our students receive come to an end?” she asked.
RETALIATION
The two sides met on Aug. 23 to discuss the contract but nothing substantive emerged from the talks.
“We (SUTA) said we would be in touch because we were so frustrated we were just done,” Alvarado said. She said the stalemate was one reason she addressed the board on Aug. 27. She added that the Aug. 27 meeting served as a litmus test for the union. (A large contingent of the union was on hand.)
“We wanted to see where our membership stood because people are afraid of retaliation in our district,” she said.
Alvarado said the district employs subtle and not-so subtle forms of intimidation.
“What I’ve been told is at the elementary (school) level — most are small sites with 30 or so staff — the principal will come visit the classroom every day if the teacher was to show up at a board meeting,” she said. “The principal would visit the class for no reason. Whereas the teachers who do not go to board meetings get left alone. It’s this ‘I know-you-were-there mentality because we’re a small staff so I’m going to make your life as miserable as possible to prove a point that you shouldn’t show up at the next one.’”
Alvarado said no contract negotiations are scheduled in the immediate future.
“It’s like talking to a wall every time I speak to the board,” she said.
SUSD said it could not comment on ongoing contract negotiations.
