Sara Kennedy

Bargaining Update - May 8, 2025

As a direct result of SDEA members’ collective pressure with pickets at 125 schools last week, yesterday the District finally brought a response to our proposal on pay for this school year. Most of the day was spent on negotiations over pay, but SDEA also shared our two remaining proposals related to evaluations.

We reached a tentative agreement on wages for the 2024-25 school year! 

• 0.5% retroactive to July 1, 2024
• 1% retroactive to January 1, 2025
• That would be a total 1.5% raise for all educators as they begin next school year!

This raise is higher than the state COLA, and while pay for future years is still to be decided, educators now have an answer about their retroactive raises going into the summer. 

Read the full tentative agreement on Article 7 Wages: 2024-2025 Reopener and see all proposals passed back and forth yesterday on our tracker.

What’s next? SDEA members will need to vote to ratify our tentative agreement on 2024-2025 raises, so look for more information and a ballot from Simply Voting sent to your district email on Monday, May 19. (As a reminder, only SDEA members vote.) Once ratified, all educators who are part of the bargaining unit can expect retroactive pay by December 31, 2025.

When negotiations resume after summer, we’ll need to resolve some other pay issues that directly affect the staffing of vital programs:

• TK Early Childhood Education (ECE) Co-Teacher Stipends: TK ECE co-teachers’ $4250 annual stipend currently expires along with our contract. On the first day of negotiations, we proposed to extend this stipend in our Appendix B proposal but the District has yet to respond. Letting this stipend lapse would be a significant pay cut for our lowest-paid educators. The District has historically struggled to staff Early Childhood Education and has announced the addition of 23 more TK classrooms next school year. Cutting TK ECE co-teacher pay now is a shortsighted move by the District considering the urgent need to recruit and retain the highest quality teachers for our youngest learners.

• Special Education Stipends: We have proposed a $4000 Education Specialist annual stipend to support with filling ongoing vacancies as well as caseload overage remedies that will help overwhelmed educators. (See our previously proposed changes to Article 29 and Appendix A, Section 8.02)

We presented two connected proposals aimed at strengthening and simplifying the educator evaluation process. A clear, supportive evaluation system is essential for retaining educators and helping to support our professional growth, without giving administrators arbitrary and unchecked power. Both SDEA members and District leaders have been working for years to improve evaluations, and these proposals would build on that foundation to make evaluations more meaningful and equitable to better equip us to meet student needs.

Articles 14 and 18: Evaluation Procedures and Peer Review and Enrichment (PREP)

Proposed improvements include:

• Using the “alternative” evaluation process as the main evaluation process moving forward for all educators.
• Guaranteeing the 5-year evaluation cycle for qualified educators.
• Giving educators greater control in choosing goals aligned with professional standards and best practices.
• Creating a joint “Extended Advisory” panel with SDEA members and District representatives, to ensure fairer decisions about support and next steps for educators needing improvement. 

Read all proposed changes to Article 14: Evaluation Procedures and Article 18: PREP. (Since this is a major overhaul to Article 14, that version with all the changes might be hard to read. A clean copy is available here, which is the language as it would read if this proposal is accepted as is.)

Read full proposals:

See our tracker for all proposals exchanged so far and all tentative agreements, with links to read the full text of each.

What's next?

• As union educators, we need to use our collective power to defend public education on a larger scale. Saturday, May 17 is a statewide day of action to Fight for Schools. SDEA members will join other local educators and community allies to stand up for our students against federal threats. Here in San Diego we will meet at Roosevelt Middle School at 11:00am to rally and march together.

• As the school year ends and educators have a much needed chance to rest, we know we need to return next school year ready to keep fighting for a fair contract and the schools our students deserve. Because When We Fight, WE WIN!

Madison High School, just one of the many schools who picketed last week

SDEA’s Bargaining Team

Kyle Weinberg, SDEA President, Laurie Bailon, Restorative Justice Teacher, Bell MS; Carly Bresee, Ed. Specialist: Moderate/Severe, Perkins K-8, Sarah Darr, SDEA Secretary, WCW Campaign Organizer & Senior SLP; Christina Gallegos, ECSE Teacher, Rodriguez ES; Candace Gyure, School Nurse; Stacy Hernandez, SDEA Bargaining Chair & 2nd Grade Teacher, Dailard El.; Andrew Melia, School Psychologist, Riley School; Elizabeth Miller, Ed. Specialist: Mild/Moderate, Lewis MS; Eri Nall, Head Counselor; Kiki Ochoa, History and Ethnic Studies Lead Teacher, Lincoln HS; Lori Schmersal, PE Teacher & Coach, Clairemont HS; plus SDEA staff Anthony Saavedra, Executive Director,  Sara Holerud, Organizer, and Rafal Dobrowolski, Contract Specialist 

by Sara Kennedy

Bargaining Update - April 24, 2025

At yesterday’s bargaining session, SDEA members on the Bargaining Team made progress with one Tentative Agreement on Job Sharing. We presented almost all of our remaining proposals related to staffing and stability and got one counterproposal. However, the District is still dragging its feet on the urgent issue of educator pay. With only one scheduled bargaining date left this school year, we’ll need to turn up the pressure at next week's pickets to send a strong message to district leadership that We Can’t Wait for fully staffed, stable and inclusive schools!

The District still has not responded to any of our pay proposals, despite the fact that Article 7 raises were the first thing we proposed when we began negotiating in February. 

Last year, members ratified our reopener agreement with the understanding that we would agree on 2024-2025 raises once more financial information was available. The prospect of going into summer break without any agreement even around this year’s raises would be a reckless move by the District, considering the growing staffing crisis for impacted areas like special education.

Staffing schools was a main focus of negotiations this week, including one Tentative Agreement and two new proposals. The District accepted our proposed changes to Article 21: Job Sharing, which expand and clarify job-sharing opportunities to retain educators in our district even when they cannot work full time. Read the entire Tentative Agreement here for Article 21: Job Sharing.

SDEA presented two more proposals related to staffing:

• Protections for SDEA members & their work: With tight budgets and quickly developing technology, there is a lot of incentive for districts to get creative about how they provide required student services - whether that’s contracting out student services instead of hiring more full-time staff, or even replacing human service providers with chatbots. Our proposed changes to Article 2 include language that can protect SDEA members and their work both from Artificial Intelligence and subcontracting. See all proposed changes to Article 2: Recognition. 
  
• Support for Bilingual/ELD educators: Along with updating language to match other proposals around compensation for additional work, our proposed changes protect the workload of English Language Development teachers by limiting the number of different levels that can be in one class. See all proposed changes to Article 22: Bilingual/ELD Teachers.

The District countered our proposal on Article 33: Discipline, and we presented a proposal on Article 31: Reduced Workload. Retaining dedicated educators is essential for school stability!

• We are still discussing how to improve our progressive discipline language. The District responded to our proposed updates to the progressive discipline process. Our changes aim to clarify the steps of progressive discipline and ensure no discipline occurs without just cause. The District’s version attempts to simplify language by referencing Education Code. We raised concerns that Ed. Code only requires just cause for suspensions and dismissals, not for lower levels of discipline (like a Letter of Reprimand). Read the District’s entire counterproposal on Article 33: Discipline.
  
  
• We proposed improvements to Reduced Workload Program language to retain educators throughout their career. Our proposed changes would close loopholes so that our Reduced Workload Program is accessible to more unit members. Some of our members are enrolled in the CalPERS pension system, since they have worked in both classified and certificated positions. Reduced Workload Programs allow school communities to retain experienced educators even when they can’t or don’t want to work full time as they near retirement, and current language only includes those enrolled in the CalSTRS pension system. See all proposed changes to Article 31: Reduced Workload.

Read full proposals:

See our tracker for all proposals exchanged so far and all tentative agreements, with links to read the full text of each.

What's next?

Our next bargaining session is in two weeks on May 8. SDEA will be presenting their last remaining proposals on Evaluation and the Peer Review & Enrichment Program. With everything else financial already on the table, it’s time for the District to stop stalling on pay for this current year. The continued delay is unacceptable, as educators already struggle to afford to live in the communities we serve. With escalating federal attacks on public education, showing up in solidarity is more important than ever. We need to make our voices heard:

• Join your school’s picket next week! Bring your signs, bring your energy, bring your community! Download a chant sheet here and hear chants modeled by fellow educators. Not sure when your school’s picket is scheduled? Ask your rep!
  

• Rally with educators across the state on May 17! San Diego educators are joining a statewide day of action to defend public education against federal threats. Here in San Diego we will meet at Roosevelt Middle School at 11:00am. 

It’s time for our District and our State to invest in our students! We Can’t Wait!

SDEA’s Bargaining Team

Kyle Weinberg, SDEA President, Laurie Bailon, Restorative Justice Teacher, Bell MS; Carly Bresee, Ed. Specialist: Moderate/Severe, Perkins K-8, Sarah Darr, SDEA Secretary, WCW Campaign Organizer & Senior SLP; Christina Gallegos, ECSE Teacher, Rodriguez ES; Candace Gyure, School Nurse; Stacy Hernandez, SDEA Bargaining Chair & 2nd Grade Teacher, Dailard El.; Andrew Melia, School Psychologist, Riley School; Elizabeth Miller, Ed. Specialist: Mild/Moderate, Lewis MS; Eri Nall, Head Counselor; Kiki Ochoa, History and Ethnic Studies Lead Teacher, Lincoln HS; Lori Schmersal, PE Teacher & Coach, Clairemont HS; plus SDEA staff Anthony Saavedra, Executive Director,  Sara Holerud, Organizer, and Rafal Dobrowolski, Contract Specialist 

by Sara Kennedy