FREMONT — Teachers, frustrated by the lack of what they call a fair contract with their school district, will hold rallies and “walk-ins” at their schools Friday morning, along with parents and students who support them.
People will be picketing outside of schools about 30 minutes before classes begin around the district, and then students and teachers will walk into their classrooms in solidarity, according to Victoria Birbeck-Hererra, the Fremont Unified District Teachers Association president.
The early morning action is meant to show Fremont Unified School District leadership that the union of more than 2,000 teachers, psychologists and other workers are organized and have community support in ongoing contract talks, which reached an impasse earlier this year.
Birbeck-Herrera said Thursday the school district and union have been negotiating over the contract for the current 2018-19 school year since last April, but the two sides remain far apart.
“We’re really at the point where we’ve given our school board and senior management at the district almost a year to come around and make educators a priority, and they’re not showing any inclination to do so,” Birbeck-Herrera said.
She said the teachers union is asking for a 4 percent raise for the current school year, 2018-19, which she said amounts to a cost of living increase in the costly Bay Area.
The district — which serves about 35,000 students across 42 schools — has most recently countered by offering a 0.71 percent raise, which Birbeck-Herrera said falls far short of what educators deserve.
Raúl Zamora, the district’s assistant superintendent of human resources, estimated the district would have to make “draconian” cuts totaling roughly $28 million to offer teachers the 4 percent they are asking for.
“We’ve met with the union leaders, and tried to describe to them what our budget looks like. We have nothing to hide,” Zamora said Thursday.
He said the challenge for the district is finding a sustainable source of funding to support ongoing salary increases, which he said is difficult when the state is underfunding schools.
Since they were unable to reach an agreement after more than a dozen meetings, the district and teachers union have moved onto a “fact-finding” phase, where a neutral arbitrator is appointed to review evidence from both parties about the contract negotiations.
A private hearing is set for April 4, where fact-finder Najeeb Khoury — the same person who did fact-finding recently for Oakland just before teachers went on strike there — will present his report to both sides, Birbeck-Herrera said.
Fremont teachers also have chosen Charles King as their representative in the fact-finding sessions, the same person used by Oakland teachers.
School district officials and Birbeck-Herrera both say they want to avoid a strike, however, and hope the fact-finding will lead to clarity and eventually, an agreement.
“I think that it’s unfortunate the way things are going,” Ann Crosbie, a school board member since 2012, said Thursday.
“Absolutely none of us want this sort of animosity in our school district. We want to be working collaboratively, I think the teachers would say the same thing,” she said.
“We see the teachers as professionals who deserve a rate of pay that compensates them for the amazing work that they do, and we recognize that it’s really important work,” she said.
Birbeck-Herrera said over the past decade, Fremont teachers have seen about 16 percent raises, including a 1.05 percent bump last year, but the cost of living in the Bay Area has shot up about 25 percent in the same period, leaving teachers feeling shorted.
Among school districts in Alameda County, Fremont teachers in 2017-18 were the fifth-highest paid with an average salary of $89,130, according to 2017-18 figures from the state.
Salaries for teachers in Fremont range from $65,398 to $114,623. However, the district doesn’t pay for teacher health benefits, so teachers pay for that out of their own pocket.
“When you look exclusively at salary, Fremont fares fairly well, and yet when you look at the combination of salary and benefits, Fremont is among the lower in our area,” Birbeck-Herrera said.
There are also multi-year deals on the table.
Birbeck-Herrera said the union is offering a four-year deal, from 2018-19 through 2021-22. In that deal, it is seeking a 3.7 percent bump this year, and future raises tied to the cost of living increases school districts get from the state plus one-half percent for the following three years.
Zamora said the district countered that by offering a three year deal, through 2020-21. Under the district offer, teachers would receive a 2 percent bump this year, with future increases based on cost of living projections, minus how much the district must pay in increased pension funding for those years.
The effective projected increase would be about 5.6 percent over the next three years, Zamora said, noting the projections could change.
Birbeck-Herrera said that deal would leave the district “little hope of attracting and retaining the most highly qualified teachers for our students.”