Teachers in the San Diego Unified School District have called off a strike planned for Feb. 26. That’s after their union and the district reached an agreement to give more support to special education teachers.
The agreement provides more time to complete paperwork and meet with families. It also gives them monthly stipends if their caseloads are over the agreed-upon limit, according to the union.
“This was a huge victory for them to be able to have these improvements in place at schools throughout the district,” said Kyle Weinberg, president of the San Diego Education Association .
San Diego Unified limits special education caseloads to 20 students with mild to moderate disabilities or 12 students with moderate to severe disabilities.
The district pays stipends to teachers if they’re over those limits. But the union said teachers would sometimes wait months or years for those stipends. The union said the new agreement makes them automatic and monthly.
Special education teaching positions are hard to fill, said Richard Barrera, president of the district’s board of education.
“We compensate ed specialists when they have more students than they should have under their caseload, and we increase that compensation in this agreement,” he said. “And that’s fair to our teachers, to our ed specialists, but it also creates an incentive for the district to work hard at recruiting special education teachers.”
The union also reached a tentative agreement with the district on a new three-year contract. It would cover the current school year and the next two years.
The agreement promises no teacher layoffs during the contract period. It also includes a 5% wage increase once the state provides funding for it.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposed state budget withholds more than $5.5 billion in state education funding, according to the district. Earlier this week, district leaders were in Sacramento advocating for that money to go to schools.
Barrera said “the voice and the power of educators” got them to this tentative agreement.
“That's going to be the most important asset that we have in advocating to the state legislature and governor to release that money,” he said.
