This is a developing story and we will update it as further details are available.
About 1,000 people gathered in front of the WCCUSD office in Richmond and nearby at Veterans Memorial Park Tuesday in a show of support for the WCCUSD teachers union, which is on strike for a fourth day.
The union has held rallies every day since the strike started except for Sunday.
In front of the district office, dozens of educators and allies painted Bissell Avenue with a 25-by-100-foot mural of a large pencil that reads, “WCCUSD: Figure it out! Invest in schools students deserve.” The piece was designed and led by local artist David Solnit, who has helped craft most of UTR’s artwork for the strike. Another street mural was painted at Richmond High School that says, “No contract, no teachers, fair pay now.”
“It’s been really powerful, seeing so many schools, and all of our community members coming together in solidarity,” Kumi Yanagihara, a science teacher at Kennedy High School, told Richmondside.
Yanagihara said the salary increase the teachers are seeking is long overdue.
“WCCUSD teachers have been undervalued for years and years and years, and I’ve been here for five — and just in those five years alone it’s clear that the last couple offers we’ve received over the years do not reflect the value that those teachers bring to the community, and it’s time management figures it out.”
Emotions seemed heightened on Tuesday, with many shedding tears on and off the stage at Veterans Memorial Park.
UTR rally emcee Christina Baronian shed a few tears after a parent read a poem in support of teachers.
“It has been hard having to defend my value and worth to people, because we work our f*cking asses off,” Baronian, who teaches fourth and fifth grades at Lake Elementary, told the crowd. “You’ll notice how I waited until day four before I said a bad word. And for anyone that knows me (that’s pretty good) … but I really needed (to hear that support from our families).”
Yvonne Magallanes, a second-grade dual-immersion language teacher at Grant Elementary, also got emotional. She brought her 4-year old daughter with her to the rally.
“I wanted to show the district the face of someone who is impacted by decisions they are making,” Magallanes told Richmondside, swallowing tears. “There is just so much disrespect (from the district), but it is nice to see everyone coming together to make a change … I hope my daughter sees that and uses her voice too.”
WCCUSD school board held all-day closed session Tuesday
The WCCUSD school board held an emergency closed session from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Tuesday to discuss whether it can afford increases to salaries and benefits proposed by the teachers union. The next union-district negotiating meeting was set to begin at 3 p.m. this afternoon, and the union rally will continue there, at Alvarado Adult School, 5625 Sutter, Ave.
WCCUSD said the school board’s Saturday proposal, including improved health benefits and a 7% raise, would cost more than $103 million over three years. The United Teachers of Richmond’s counterproposal is asking for a 9% increase that would cost more than $180 million, the district said.
The district said state financial experts are helping with the fiscal analysis “due to the potential magnitude of the UTR’s counter.”
For months the teachers union has said the district has the funds to pay educators higher salaries while the district has maintained that it doesn’t. It used reserves to balance its most recent budget due to a $16.9 million structural deficit and still needs to cut an additional $7.7 million.
In a separate email sent Monday evening, WCCUSD Superintendent Cheryl Cotton addressed the question — one even asked by state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond — of why the district didn’t meet with the teachers union on Sunday or Monday.
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“UTR provided a very wide-ranging counterproposal that did not include costing information,” the email said. “We cannot responsibly enter a discussion with the Board or UTR without all necessary information to ensure productive meetings. Frankly, meeting with UTR to review their counterproposal without having the facts regarding costs would not help to expedite a settlement.”
The district also shared why the school board has been able to meet without providing public notice.
It said the board is invoking the Educational Employment Relations Act (EERA) and an article of the Brown Act that allows a governing board to lawfully meet to discuss labor negotiations without providing the usual notice and posting normally required for a regular or special meeting.
Dual language immersion teachers: Leadership turnover has left program sorely neglected
At the rally, Magallanes stood with two other dual language immersion teachers in WCCUSD. They said over the past five years the program has declined and the district has failed to prioritize it.
“We need something just for (the dual language program). We need recruitment and retention of teachers, alignment to the curriculum, valid and appropriate assessments,” Abigail Parther, a dual language teacher at Ford Elementary, told Richmondside. “They have a curriculum that isn’t really a bilingual program so they piecemeal it.”
Prather teaches kindergarten and has worked in the district for 18 years. She said the revolving doors of administrators from the site level to the district level hurts the dual language program because each leader arrives with a new vision and doesn’t follow through on it. For example, dual language immersion used to be just for grades K-3 until Superintendent Gloria Johnston (who served from 1999 to 2005) expanded it to all grades.
There have been five superintendents since, including current superintendent Cotton, and the direction has remained unclear, Prather said.
Prather attended Tuesday’s rally with her 3-year-old daughter, her husband who is also a teacher, and her sister Wendy Gonzalez, a WCCUSD dual language fifth-grade educator. During her 22-year tenure, she has held many roles, including one as a principal. She echoed her sister’s sentiments.
“It’s been a struggle, and a lot of us are just at this point supplementing with our own stuff. There’s no (training/consistent curriculum) for new teachers,” Gonzalez told Richmondside.
She said she is on strike and rallying in hopes of making meaningful changes. Taking action isn’t something that is new for her. In 2004, she was among teachers who staged an 18-day hunger strike and marched to Sacramento to protest the state’s high interest rates on loans it used to bail WCCUSD from bankruptcy.
When asked if she believes the district is doing better now, she said it’s hard to know because current officials haven’t been transparent about the budget.
“It feels like they hide a lot of money,” Gonzales said. “How did they get money to pay for the security guards during the strike and not for us?”
WCCUSD has history of being in financially tenuous position
As the hunger strike story notes, WCCUSD used to be called Richmond Unified until it renamed itself in 1993, three years after it became the first school district in California to require a state bailout. In fact, the state receivership program exists because of the district’s past budget missteps decades ago.
Now, more than 30 years later, the district finds itself in a similar position. Last year, WCCUSD put itself at risk of being taken over by the county Office of Education when it failed to approve a budget on time and made millions of dollars in cuts to balance its budget.
Saddled with a structural budget-deficit, the district already made $19.7 million in cuts the last academic year.
These estimates do not include the costs associated with the strike or any raises or increased health benefits the unions may receive. And the district could lose an estimated $1 million in student enrollment revenue each day of the strike.
Richmondside freelance reporter Zoe Harwood contributed to this report.
The 7% raise offered by the board is more than triple the raise we received in our district. Over the last five years, our raises have been 0, $200, $200, 3%, and 2%. I’d love to see a 7% raise!
Because there hasn’t been a raise in 5 years. And it was 3.5 % for 25-26 and 3.5% for 26-27. That is only a cost of living adjustment