Dear Families & Community members,
Teachers are devastated that we are at the point of striking. However, the District has given us no choice. On Monday afternoon, CUTA gave the Districts the required 48 hour notice that we will be striking starting at 7am on Thursday.
Many families are questioning whether to send their child to school during a strike. District has promised that schools will continue to be open and classrooms supervised by qualified adults. With that said, if you have concerns about safety, please use your discretion when deciding whether to send your child to school. If you do choose to keep your child home due to safety concerns, please consider letting our superintendent know of your decision (Amber Lee-Alva, amberleealva@cabrillo.k12.ca.us)
The most impactful thing you can do is join us on the picket line Thursday and Friday anytime between 7 and 3:45pm. If this strike extends past Friday, we will send out a sign up for parents to join us on the line. In addition, there is a Board Meeting on Thursday at the Cunha MU. if you are able to join our picket outside the meeting or make a comment encouraging the Board to act, we would be grateful.
Please also communicate with the School Board via email letting them know you need them to solve this situation immediately by prioritizing teachers and students.
Finally, many of our teachers will struggle to make ends meet during a strike, without their regular paycheck. If you are willing to provide any donations for teachers in this situation, CUTA has set up an emergency fund: https://gofund.me/c10c91d8
We deeply appreciate your support and are eager to be back in the classroom.
CUTA Teachers and Counselors
CUTA Bargaining Update (September 6, 2024)
The District threatened to impose its "last, best, final offer" (described in the August 26th update below) and shut down negotiations, so we brought the offer to a vote. CUTA members have rejected the offer by a wide margin, as we assured the District they would. After more than two years of negotiations, members feel disrespected and undervalued. We firmly believe the offer does not reflect true concern and care for the education of CUSD students. It’s time for the school board to step up and show that their priorities are in the classroom with students and teachers.
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CUTA Bargaining Update (August 26, 2024)
Why can’t the District actually offer 6%?
Is 3% what we’ve been fighting for these past two years?
DON’T FORGET: CUSD salary ranks second from the bottom in teachers’ salaries in San Mateo County! If you take into account health benefits, we are the lowest compensated teachers in the county.
The district gave us a couple different ‘last best final offers’ on Tuesday in negotiations, and left that meeting needing to do some more research and consider a few of our concerns. We met with our members this past week to discuss the basics of their offer to see what they thought. The result of that discussion was that this scenario was probably quite close to something we could bring to a vote (but not quite there). For something to pass it needs 51% of members to vote for it. And it’d be problematic to bring something forward for a vote if we don’t endorse it or are unsure it will pass. We were waiting for the district to get back to us before responding. Then, on Friday afternoon, while we were teaching, the district both sent us the offer along with a long letter and sent the community update.
This is the first time the district has made a reasonable offer and we were taking it very seriously, even talking with all of our members about it to gauge how they felt.
Our concerns with the current offer are:
It doesn’t begin to help with family benefits for health care. It only addresses the healthcare problem that became a major issue for the first time this year (mid negotiations) by providing equivalent coverage to CSEA members. The district/board are always claiming they want to always give the equivalent compensation/benefits increases to all employees, but they let this problem drag on for a year and could have fixed it immediately. In the fall they rejected our request to write an MOU to solve this before teachers would have to start paying out of pocket for their own healthcare. As a side note, this problem is based on a new interpretation of our contract language that differs from the intent expressed when it was negotiated. We have a healthcare cap for newer teachers. At the time it was negotiated this brought the healthcare coverage above the employee only level and would have covered about 2 people (depending on the plan they picked). Since that was negotiated the district has refused to even talk about healthcare at the table. So, now the cap is less than one person. Effectively, benefits coverage for these teachers has been declining each year they’ve worked in the district.
The retro payment the district is offering in this proposal is substantially lower than their previous offer. They’re offering 6 retro to January (essentially slightly above 3% in 23/24). Their last offer was 4% retro for the whole year (for all employees, even those who left the district) and a $1500 one time payment. The bonus is, on average, equivalent to 1.3%. So, the district was able to find money for a 5.3% payment at the end of 2023/24. Additionally, the removal of the many employees who left the district frees up additional dollars that could go toward current employees. Although the 6% ongoing is better than their last offer, the retro date is problematic.
The district negotiated a clause with CSEA granting parity with CUTA for both 23/24 and 24/25. We don’t have an issue with these hard-working employees getting salary increases, but this clause has made it harder for us to negotiate with the district because the district can’t figure out what, exactly, they will have to pay for CSEA. Because the terms of our agreement might be very different from the CSEA deal they will have to go back to the table with CSEA to hash out what parity means. The current district offer to us is a 1 year deal whereas CSEA is 2 years. The district has (understandably) been unable to give us an idea of how that negotiation will go. And, when we asked them to include a similar clause for us for 24/25, they refused. This doesn’t seem in line with the district's claim that they want to be fair to all employee groups.
District leadership has stated that our school district is only a “training ground for teachers” and that our workforce are only temporary employees. This is far from the truth! Over 60 of our Cabrillo Unified teachers have served over 15 years in the district! Those teachers and every teacher for that matter, deserve to be treated in a way that makes them want to stay working with our wonderful CUSD students. At the same time we have seen increasing turnover in our teaching ranks. Even long-term teachers at the top of our salary schedule can move to other districts and make more, this even when they lose years of service and come into a new district far lower on their salary schedule. Why? Because, in recent years, other districts have budgeted for salary increases when revenues increased while CUSD has not.
Final thought: The letter the district wrote along with their current offer threatens to impose their position if we don’t agree to their offer. Essentially they are saying they are done negotiating. Either we agree to this or try to force them to the table (through a strike) to talk about the details. This is very frustrating given we have been holding off on a strike as long as they have been willing to negotiate with us. And, because we were so very close to an amicable resolution. We have been open to talking but the second to last negotiation session was canceled by the district and the most recent negotiation session began with the district team needing 90 minutes to get organized and ended with them promising to get more data for us, which they never delivered. We were happy to come back to the negotiating table but the district has not. We feel we have been patient and been thorough and that the district is trying to pressure us into accepting a deal without completely understanding it.
CUTA Bargaining Update (August 8, 2024)
HOT OFF THE PRESS: LET’S DO THE MATH ON THE DISTRICT OFFER.
District Says: 6% COLA to CUTA!
Reality:
District offered 4% for last year 23/24.
Then, IF a parcel tax passes in November, 2% more applied in January.
The 2% is for half a year!
So, this is 1% more
4 + 1 = 5%
A one-time off-schedule bonus of 1.3%. Yet, other employee groups are receiving a 3% bonus!
The only guarantee to this offer is a 4% COLA, after 2 years with NO COLA
Best case scenario: If tax passes, 1% more for 24/25.
Total raise would be 5%.
Over 3 years (2022-23, 2023-24, 2024-25), it averages to a 1.67% raise.
DON’T FORGET: CUSD salary ranks second from the bottom in teachers’ salaries in San Mateo County! If you take into account health benefits, we are the lowest compensated teachers in the county.
Please read on for detailed information.
CUTA Bargaining Update: Still No Deal (July 30, 2024)
The Teachers have not accepted a settlement with the District.
On July 25, 2024, the Classified Bargaining Unit (CSEA) settled their contract with the district for a 4% raise for 2023-24. For the 2024-25 school year CSEA settled for a one time $1,500 bonus payment and a possible 2% increase effective January 2025 if the voter’s pass a parcel tax in November. This was not a settlement with the Teachers!
In fact, there is a clause in the CSEA agreement that if teachers settle for more, CSEA will automatically get that increase as well!
The Teachers find this settlement problematic:
CUTA does not believe any salary increases should be based on contingencies;
CUTA's analysis of the District budget shows that it can afford greater than a 4% raise
The cost of teachers to the District has declined by over $1.2 million dollars in the last few years, our bargaining unit has been starved in favor of funding workplace housing and administrative “pet” projects;
CUTA does not believe teachers should be paid a well-below standard salary because of the District’s mismanagement of funds;
CUSD’s proposal WILL NOT “Keep Teachers on the Coastside”
Funding teacher salaries = Stronger services for all children
The Teachers have made progress and compromised with the District over the last 2 years of negotiations, but have not yet received a compensation increase. Please refer to the history of our negotiations over the last 2 years.
2022 / 2023
CUTA proposed a 9.6% salary increase.
CUSD offered a 0% salary increase.
The Teachers met with the District for the entire year.
The Public Employees Relation Board mediated the case.
District never moved from 0%
October 2023
CUTA proposed an 8.22% salary increase, retroactive to July 2023, based on the state-funded COLA, employee plus one coverage for newer teachers and an adjustment to the salary schedule so it won't take 27 years to reach the top.
CUSD offered a salary increase based on the elimination of some CUTA members' full family healthcare with no financial information to match this offer. There were no numbers provided for how many CUTA members would be affected, or how much of a salary increase this would mean in real dollars.
CUTA rejected this proposal given the devastating decrease in benefits for some families proposed without any clear benefit to our members.
December of 2023
CUTA was offered a 1% salary increase retroactive to July 2023
CUTA rejected this proposal as far too low an incentive to attract and retain CUSD teachers.
January through June 2024
CUTA and CUSD went through a prolonged labor negotiations process with the Public Employee Relations Board. Third party mediator was unable to help the two parties find a compromise, which led to the fact finding process with a neutral arbiter.
CUSD new offer of 2% retro from July 2023, 2% retro from February 2024, a possible 2% increase February 2025 if parcel tax passes, and a limited time employee only health coverage with a $1,500 one time bonus.
CUTA did not agree to this proposal, but found it a good place to start ongoing negotiations with the new superintendent and new financial administrator. Several possible scenarios about spreading an increase over several years were informally proposed by both sides.
July 2024
CUSD offers a 4% retroactive increase from July 2023 and ongoing employee only health insurance coverage.
CUTA counters with 8% retroactive from January 2024, employee only health care coverage and 200 stipend for members towards additional family health care costs
A subgroup of members from both parties met to dive deep into the district's finances.
Date set for ongoing negotiations on August 6th. See below for last CUTA proposal.
We have more meetings tentatively scheduled for July 31st and August 6th. CUTA continues to fight for a fair salary increase after working for TWO YEARS without a pay raise. CUTA has gone through the process and continues to be authorized to strike by the Public Employees Relations Board if a fair agreement is not reached.
In Solidarity, Your CUTA Bargaining Team, Joseph Centoni, Sean Riordan, Julie Ron, Jenny Scarpaci, Kathleen Wall
CUTA’s Most Recent Compensation Proposal:
The salary schedule for the 2022-2023 school year shall be increased by 8.0%, effective January 1, 2024.
CUTA Health and Welfare Proposal:
3.1.1 Health and Welfare Benefits
Replace section: “New Employees” with:
The maximum District contribution for health benefits for employees whose first date of paid service is on or after July 1, 2011 shall be equal to the annual cost of coverage for the employee only coverage of the high plan of the lowest cost provider offered through the District’s health benefit carrier.
1. New employees may elect to contribute out of pocket through monthly (12 months) automatic payroll deduction if they wish to purchase coverage above the cost equal to coverage for an employee only on the high plan of the lowest cost provider. If purchasing health coverage for additional family members above this level, the District will contribute an additional $200 a month toward this coverage.
Fact Finding Update (June 2024)
On May 17th the district and CUTA team met to present our understanding of the current bargaining impasse. The neutral arbiter and the advocates from each side listened to both presentations and read through the lengthier written narratives. The remaining hours were spent with the arbiter speaking closely with each team to more fully understand the situation as well as to try and find potential solutions.
Please review our presentation and report submitted as part of this process.
The arbiter’s report (available here) was released to both parties on May 30th. In it he lays out a framework for continued talks between the district and CUTA.
He prefaces the report with clear statements regarding the district's inability to provide accurate numbers on the total employees in the district and their individual health care costs.
He concurred that our compensation and recent raises are low relative to comparable districts in the area. Although there are some factual inaccuracies in his description of our current benefits system, he does recommend that the district begin to remedy the two-tiered health system that, for the first time this January, resulted in newer employees having to begin paying out of pocket for some of their individual health care.
He states he does not believe that the district is currently able to fund the CUTA proposal of 8.22% (matching the State’s COLA) in the 2023-24 school year. This led him to propose a two-year settlement, allowing the District time to budget for a raise. It is no surprise that the district would have trouble incorporating a complete COLA (retroactive to August 2023) at this juncture given another year of stalled negotiations has passed without the district budgeting for a salary increase.
The arbiter acknowledged that his non-binding suggestions are solely based on the incomplete data he was given. Even with this data uncertainty and the passage of another year of district spending, his conservative recommendations show that the district does have a greater ability to afford a salary increase than they claimed.
In her rebuttal to the recommendations, our CTA financial specialist repeats our ongoing concerns regarding the mismanagement of the district’s finances and inability to give accurate numbers specific to the actual cost of the proposed salary increase. We encourage CUTA members and the public to read her report as well.
The neutral party wants to provide the incoming superintendent with a “soft landing.” This is commendable, however we are losing qualified teachers and there are 145 teachers who have been working without a salary increase for over 2 years. Teacher voices need to be heard and a fair settlement needs to be made. CUTA hopes the report provides a framework we can use to craft a settlement as we continue to negotiate over the summer.
A first meeting is planned for next week. We hope the district will come to the table willing to make a good-faith effort to do everything they can to bring CUSD compensation in line with other comparable districts in the county to ensure CUSD retains the qualified teachers Coastside students deserve.