Teachers in the Sacramento (Calif.) City Unified District have walked off their jobs on a one-day strike over what their union contends are unfair labor practices.
The Sacramento Bee reports that the families of the 42,000 students in the district are prepareed for the job action by the Sacramento City Teachers Association. It is the union’s first strike in 30 years.
The union said a majority of its 2,500 teachers would take part in the strike; 92 percent of union members who voted last month approved the walkout.
District spokesman Alex Barrios says schools are open and classes will be appropriately staffed. A normal school day is scheduled, with regular attendance monitoring, bus service, meals and programs.
In a statement released Thursday morning, the teachers union says they were forced to strike because the district was not honoring its contract provisions that would reduce class sizes and improve student services.
The strike stems from allegations by the teachers union that the district is not honoring its 2017 agreement, including directing savings from a lower-quality health plan strictly toward reducing class sizes and funding more health workers and counselors.
The district is under the threat of state takeover as it works to close a $35 million budget gap.
Sacramento Mayor Darrell Steinberg, who helped broker the 2017 deal, and district administrators want the millions in potential health plan savings to go toward alleviating the $35 million deficit before improving student services. A new health plan has not been agreed upon.
The last teacher strike in the district was Sept. 5, 1989, when more than 1,300 teachers and several hundred other certificated workers walked off their jobs on the first day of school to demand higher wages.
