Letters in Solidarity: When We Get Strike-Ready, We Win!

Today, February 26, 2026, we were set to be on strike as SDEA union educators for our students with disabilities, to fight for the special education staffing that our schools so urgently need. While we would prefer to be in our classrooms with our students, we were ready to strike if absolutely necessary. But as we all know since we are teaching our students today in the schools that we love, we didn’t have to strike because 2 weeks ago at 11 pm as The Clock Was Ticking to come to a deal, our SDEA Bargaining Team settled the Special Education Caseload Overage Unfair Labor Practice and arrived at a tentative agreement on our entire next contract!

What’s in the tentative agreement? In the tentative agreement, there’s some huge wins for not just special education but for all educators and students in our district that we can all be proud of. That’s why the SDEA Bargaining Team, SDEA Board of Directors and SDEA Representative Council, made up of 180+ elected educator leaders from schools and programs across our district, have all unanimously endorsed a YES vote on the ratification of our next contract. 

Here are a few of the biggest wins:

• Concrete solutions to address Special Education staffing shortages like caseload overage stipends, annual $4000 stipends for ESN/Mod/Severe teachers, case management days for Mild/Moderate teachers and free SPED credentials for SDEA members who fill vacancies internally
• 5% pay raise over 2 years
• Locked in fully-paid family healthcare (including Kaiser $10 co-pay limit)
• No layoffs – a historic win!
• Continuing the path to ending the unnecessary chaos of Fall Excessing
• Restored Early Childhood Education TK co-teacher stipend
• Protections for immigrant and LGBTQ+ educators and students

And these are just the highlights! In the rest of this issue of the SDEA Advocate, you’ll find a summary of the tentative agreement, an FAQ and a salary calculator for your 5% raise to help you make an informed decision on your vote to ratify our next contract.

Reps at last night’s Rep Council unanimously endorsing a YES vote!

How did we win all of this? We won the demands in our SDEA bargaining platform by coordinating our campaign with our We Can’t Wait union sibling locals across the state and getting strike-ready for the first time in 30 years in our district. When we achieved our goal of 90%+ SDEA union educators voting to authorize a strike for special education staffing, we left the district with no other choice but to shut down schools on the day of our strike because you can’t run schools without teachers! This gave our SDEA Bargaining Team maximum power 2 weeks ago to push the limits of what was possible because we had the full force of 6000+ mobilized SDEA union educators behind us. Because WHEN WE GET STRIKE-READY, WE WIN!