On Monday (August 24), our bargaining team met with the District where we presented our response regarding Distance Learning.

You can view our proposal by clicking here. Our response also includes our proposal for a phase-in of Distance Learning called SmartStart (based on schedules that were successfully implemented in Oakland and Los Angeles) as well as our proposed daily schedules for Elementary and Secondary.

We have summarized the differences between our proposals here:

You can download a copy of this comparison by clicking here.

We met for four hours with the District on Monday to present our proposals and to discuss the District's response to our proposed daily schedules. You can view the District's responses for Elementary Schedules by clicking here and the Secondary Schedules by clicking here.

In addition, as a follow-up to Monday's bargaining session, late in the day Tuesday, the District sent the proposal it plans to discuss when we meet on Saturday that you can view by clicking here.

Our bargaining team offered to meet with the District's team Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, but the District needed to reschedule a hearing before the California Public Employee Relations Board slated for Thursday and Friday to make that possible. The District refused.

Our negotiations on Saturday will be our eighteenth bargaining session with the District since the spring, which have included hundreds of educators in the process.

New guidelines by the California Department of Public Health regarding holding in-person instruction in small cohorts for specialized services were just released. This guidance does supersede previous guidance on reopening schools and others related to COVID-19. The position of CTA throughout California, and that includes here in Sacramento, is that schools cannot open until they are safe, which means that students and staff must be safe. While the small cohort approach is a step forward, but it needs to be considered when the community conditions are safe , and where a low-COVID 19 threshold has been reached in communities and counties as established by the state of California. Moreover, these too are matters for negotiations.