WCCUSD strike: Teachers frustrated district won’t bargain until Tuesday but are hopeful

While the United Teachers of Richmond and the West Contra Costa Unified School District are closer than ever to reaching an agreement, the strike will continue into a fourth day on Tuesday as the two sides hold another bargaining session. 

At a rally at Richmond’s Civic Center on Monday, attended by more than 1,000 educators, students and supporters, some were optimistic, while others were frustrated at what they called delay tactics by the district.

The union had hoped to finalize a contract Sunday, after making considerable progress during a seven-hour bargaining meeting on Saturday. Over the weekend, the district had accepted a number of the union’s proposals, most notably on raises, moving from its initial 0% raise to offering a 7% raise over two years. UTR, initially requesting a 10% raise over two years, counteroffered with 9%. 

But UTR members were frustrated that a negotiating meeting wasn’t scheduled for Sunday or Monday. Despite a nudge from state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond for the district to meet with UTR today, WCCUSD officials are sticking to their plan to meet Tuesday. 

The negotiations are expected to take place Tuesday afternoon after the WCCUSD school board holds an emergency closed session Tuesday morning.

 “Saturday, we worked until midnight to provide counter proposals to the district, but they left us on read,” Richelle Milford, co-bargaining chair of the United Teachers of Richmond told the Civic Center crowd. “We were ready to reach an agreement, and we’re still ready. We want to be back with our students, and our students want to be back with us.” 

In an email sent to the school community on Monday at 8:40 p.m., WCCUSD Superintendent Cheryl Cotton said the reason for the scheduling delay was to give enough time to examine the fiscal implications of accepting UTR’s counter proposal. The district met with statewide fiscal experts on Sunday.

“Following hours of work on Sunday, it was determined that the teams could responsibly reconvene on Tuesday, when they would be able to provide analysis of the UTR counterproposal,” Cotton wrote.

The boards proposal of a 7% raise would cost more than $103 million when to applied to all unions, while UTR’s counter proposal would cost more than $180 million, Cotton said. The teachers union does not have a “me too” clause, which means it cannot ask for a similar offer given to another union, but the other unions in WCCUSD do, so they can receive whatever raise the teachers get.

“UTR provided a very wide-ranging counterproposal that did not include costing information. We cannot responsibly enter a discussion with the Board or UTR without all necessary information to ensure productive meetings,” Cotton wrote, noting she is hopeful to reach an agreement with the union. “Frankly, meeting with UTR to review their counterproposal without having the facts regarding costs would not help to expedite a settlement.”

Gianna Ramirez, a teacher at Downer Elementary, told Richmondside that while the strike is tiring, the progress is encouraging.

“We’re getting close to what we wanted,” Ramirez said. “We need at least 8% to cover the cost of living from our last raise. This would include the projected cost of living for 2026 increase,” she said.

She and other teachers around the area did notice a few more students crossed the picket lines today to attend school.

Some parents decided not to drop their students off once they realized the strike was continuing, she said.

Teachers picketing at DeJean Middle School, where Stege Elementary students attend classes temporarily, reported something similar, saying about 100 students showed up this morning, with many of them leaving after they realized the strike was continuing.

If public support can be gauged by sweets, Stege teachers felt the love, at one point finding themselves with five boxes of donuts thanks to their principal and parents.

A spot check of schools showed fewer picketers out Monday morning, which made sense since the Teamsters suspended their strike as members prepare to ratify the tentative agreement they reached with the district.

Yet some did exercise their right to still picket with UTR members. In fact, data shared with Richmondside showed that only 722 staff went to work. Of that number about 200 staff are administrators, which means only a third of Teamsters went to work.

Sylvia Alvarez, a speech language pathologist at Cameron school in El Cerrito, said during her Monday morning picket she saw half of the Teamsters who work at the school outside with teachers and parents.

Mariana Cavallin, a speech therapist at Downer Elementary in San Pablo, said while there were fewer Teamsters picketing, the solidarity is still strong. She also saw several parents turn around when they realized the strike hadn’t ended for teachers. 

Cavallin said while students who did attend classes are likely to see more familiar faces, it’s unlikely that much learning is happening at any campus.

“The teachers themselves are the only ones that can provide the curriculum,” Cavallin told Richmondside. I’m gonna assume that most of what’s happening is a lot of cafeteria time and a lot of free time. It’s babysitting, but there’s no learning happening.”

Progress on teachers contract, particularly for international educators

Andrea Livinghaus, a bargaining UTR member, said while compensation remains a main sticking point between the district and union, a lot of progress was made on other parts of the contract.

She said she is particularly excited that WCCUSD has accepted the union’s proposal to fund 100% of the cost for visas for international educators and their families. In addition, once an educator receives a California teaching credential, WCCUSD will pay for all of their legal fees, costs, and immigration filing fees as long as the educator works in the district for two years.

WCCUSD will also provide housing for international educators for at least a month after they arrive, as well as stipends of no less than $1,500 “to offset costs related to visa acquisition, travel, and housing arrangements,” the union’s proposal reads. 

“That feels historic because we’re the only local I know of that has introduced something like that into the contract,” Livinghaus, who works at El Cerrito high school, told Richmondside. 

Since 1998, the district has recruited educators from countries such as the Philippines, Mexico, Spain and China. 

“They are here for hard-to-fill positions for special education and dual immersion programs,” Livinghaus said. “There’s a whole cohort of them. They really enrich our schools, and we rely on them, and they want to be here.” 

She said the district’s acceptance of that article showed union members that  “we forced their hand and now they are going to protect these people that they recruit.”

Saddiqa Nisar, a speech therapist at De Anza and Kennedy high schools, said the district still needs to agree to, for example, reductions in special education case loads. 

“We want money to be spent closer to the students,” Nisar told Richmondside. “For example, the district is hiring (virtual speech language pathologists). A lot of parents are demanding in-person, especially for those who are higher needs.” 

So far, the district has said it would agree to cap those case loads at 55. The union is asking for a max of 50. 

“This is a very minimal movement,” Livinghaus said. “We need them to make some more movement on more. But we’re satisfied that at least now it feels like we can actually begin bargaining after 10 months.” 

Concerns around reporting student attendance

Although student attendance numbers appeared anecdotally higher on Monday than they were on Thursday or Friday last week, the data shows that this week, fewer students went to school. The district receives revenue based on average daily attendance. On Thursday, about 2,815 students attended, which is about 11% of the district’s student body. Friday saw smaller numbers.

On Monday, 2,420 students were on campus, according to a district official who spoke on the condition of anonymity. 

The district also gave students the option of enrolling in independent study, which it’s allowed to count as attendance, and 1,300 students chose that option.

The low attendance numbers are potentially devastating for the district, which estimates it could lose $1 million in revenue each day of the strike.

Some parents and teachers are questioning the accuracy of the district’s student headcount. Documents shared with Richmondside, for example, showed that Hercules High School administrators asked families to self-report attendance virtually. 

Matt Draper shared a screenshot with Richmondside that showed his daughter still had perfect attendance even though she has not attended school on Thursday and Friday.

“We are keeping her home from school in support of the teacher’s strike. Our support is intended to deprive the district of attendance funds, encouraging engagement with the teachers,” Draper wrote in an email. “If she has been marked present intentionally, that act of fraud invalidates the effect of our boycott and is unacceptable.”

Staff from the school, however, told Draper that attendance was not updated because Teamsters are on strike and attendance clerks were not on campus. Her attendance was updated on Monday.

At El Cerrito High School, several students said football players were pressured to attend by administrators who threatened to bar them from playing in the state championship. 

An email shared with Richmondside showed that El Cerrito High School is asking parents to fill out an attendance form online if their student was absent. 

However, the email sent to the El Cerritto High community by Principal Stacy Wayne also maintained that it was only counting attendance in person. 

“Please be assured that we are following our standard backup procedure used during (power) outages: attendance is being recorded on paper and then manually entered into our system,” she wrote. “Because of this manual process, there is a delay in updating records in PowerSchool. Our staff is currently entering this data, and the system will accurately reflect all absences once the paper records have been fully processed.” 

The district sent a similar message on ParentSquare.