Posted on Jan 18, 2012

Note: The following letter was shared with all SDEA members this afternoon.

SDEA Members—

Yesterday Superintendent Bill Kowba sent all of us an email doing exactly what I suggested he would in my own email to you last week: He has begun to call for deep contract concessions based on unknown budget numbers, and is threatening extensive layoffs that he knows are damaging to our students and our school communities if we do not concede. The reason the District’s actions have grown so easy to predict is that this is the fifth year in a row of the exact same behavior:

  1. The District lacks comprehensive and reliable budget information in the spring.
  2. The District picks and chooses from what unreliable information does exist to paint a portrait of the worst-case scenario for our schools.
  3. The District issues extensive unnecessary layoffs based on their concocted worst-case scenario.
  4. The District insists that they will not be able to recall the layoffs without contract concessions.
  5. Schools open in the fall, and the District recalls the layoffs without the “needed” contract concessions.

If Kowba’s demands sound familiar, they should. His email yesterday calls for deferring our fairly negotiated raises, extending furlough days, salary rollbacks, “reshaping” health benefit contributions, and contingencies around budget changes. These concessions, Kowba claims, are necessary if layoffs are to be avoided. Just last June, School Board members Richard Barrera and Scott Barnett called for the continuation of furlough days, indefinite deferral of the salary increases, and “working with unions to explore savings in health benefit plans” (click here to download the June memo). Last June, just as now, our District leaders told us layoffs simply could not be avoided unless we conceded to their demands. And yet of the original 1,349 certificated pink slips issued last year, fewer than 200 educators remain in layoff status (and many of those have received and declined recall).

The only thing that differentiates this year from the preceding years is that the California budget has begun to actually look up for San Diego’s schools and students. Just this morning, Governor Jerry Brown gave his “State of the State” address, which he opened with the proclamation that “California is on the mend.” Brown’s address further underscored that reality for San Diego’s schools in particular. Among the many facts that Kowba failed to mention in his email is that Brown’s budget replaces the current categorical funding model with a weighted formula wherein districts with high proportions of low-income students and English learners may receive even more funding. According to the Sacramento Bee:

“Specifically, for every dollar districts receive for a student, they would get an additional 37 cents if the student were poor and/or an English learner. Districts with large concentrations of these disadvantaged students would receive extra funding on top of that.”

This, of course, is on the heels of the good news that our schools will not face feared mid-year cuts this year, and will receive additional monies based on the elimination of redevelopment agencies. And our District knows full well that they are not anywhere near insolvency or a “state takeover.” Seven school districts in our County just gave themselves “qualified” fiscal certifications (the first step on the road to insolvency). Our District was not one of them. The bottom line is this: As is always the case in January, the District simply does not know what their financial reality will be for the next school year, let alone the year after that. Unfortunately, these facts don’t match the District’s five-year-old playbook, and so are omitted from Kowba’s “four budget realities.”

Tempting though it is to engage in a point-by-point argument (for example, the District is projecting with certitude a $125 million hole for 2013-2014, despite only learning a few weeks ago what their definitive budget would be for our current school year), we educators need to be the ones who lead in refocusing our elected leaders on the one true priority: our students. In three pages, Kowba uses the word “budget” thirty-three times. He uses the word “students” only once. It is difficult to take a Superintendent seriously in his assertions that he wants to bring long-term stability to our schools when his only proposals are to either dismiss 1,000+ educators or render the compensation for our profession so untenable that no one will want to enter it in the first place. That is not the “stability” our students deserve.

In the end, the conversation comes down to trust. How can we trust a District that picks and chooses the “facts” it uses to portray its fiscal reality? How can we trust a District when it seeks to negotiate “contingency language” with employee unions, but won’t even honor the contingency language that we already have in our contract (as evidenced by the pending arbitration we have with the District to enforce contingency language we negotiated around healthcare savings)? How can we trust a District that changes the shape and size of its budget hole (and its reserve funding) with every new press release? Given that lack of trust, the only responsible course of action is to wait for reliable and accurate information to continue to emerge, and to respond accordingly.

Here is what we do know: Over the past four years, SDEA members have successfully protected our schools and our students by remaining united, not divided, and refusing to submit to cynical attempts on the part of the District to divide and conquer. The months ahead will require that we yet again join together in solidarity to fight for our students and our profession. When we work together with parents, students and the community to advocate for what we know is right, we win every single time.

Together We Are Stronger!

—Bill Freeman, SDEA President