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The San Ramon Valley Unified School District and its teachers union are set to return to the impasse process after a previous tentative agreement between the two parties that included concessions by the district to maintain and restore some class sizes and staffing ratios failed to pass a ratification vote with the union.
SRVEA members voted against the ratification of a previously announced tentative agreement with the district that would have limited class sizes for fourth and fifth grades, restored four social worker positions, and maintained one half of a full-time counselor position for each of the district’s 22 elementary school sites, as well as offered an early retirement incentive.
While these were all points that SRVEA’s bargaining team had been pushing for in negotiations with district management – which had been stalled following the latter’s declaration of impasse earlier this year, a move that SRVEA did not join in – concerns about language in the proposed agreement led it to fail a ratification vote by the union, specifically regarding ambiguity about the possibility of returning to negotiations should the district’s finances improve.
“The tentative agreement that was developed by our teams was created in good faith,” SRVEA President Laura Finco said in her monthly report at the board’s May 13 meeting. “After months of difficult and sometimes contentious negotiations, we made progress. But even when we do our best work, sometimes we just don’t get it right. And the vote from our members made it clear – we didn’t get it right.”
“So what’s the core issue? Trust, and language that demands a level of trust that simply isn’t there anymore,” she continued. “Our members are concerned about the trigger language.”
Specifically, Finco pointed to language in the tentative agreement that ensured only a “discussion” about changes to the district’s finances rather than assurance that negotiations could resume should the financial tides turn in the district’s favor, and a lack of trust in district management to work with the union amid tensions in this year’s negotiations over budget cuts.
“That’s not enough, because in the past we’ve been able to come together as true partners and negotiate,” Finco said. “We did that because the trust was there. Now our educators are looking at a three-year MOU that lacks any contingency language, no real mechanism that ensures we’ll reopen negotiations when new money arrives, and that was unacceptable.”
SRVEA members had also wanted to see additional details about the retirement incentive – which were sparse in the tentative agreement – and assurance that any new revenue or savings as a result was being used to restore class sizes, mental health supports, and other programming for students, Finco said.
“Right now that confidence is missing,” Finco said. “We spent years after COVID repairing damaged relationships and building bridges. We worked hard. We were successful, because we kept our students at the center of every conversation. But when educators are chastised for standing up for their students, that breaks the fragile trust we worked so hard to rebuild.”
While Finco called for the district to return to negotiations to fine tune and adjust language in the agreement that had previously been approved by both bargaining teams – but failed to pass a ratification vote by a majority of SRVEA members the following week– Superintendent CJ Cammack said in an announcement May 14 that the district would no longer be considering concessions district management had made in that agreement.
“We are disappointed that, without ratification, we cannot return middle school Student Support Counselors at this time, along with the other provisions of the mediator’s proposal,” Cammack said. “We share great admiration, respect, and appreciation for all our staff. We are in this together, we will emerge from this together, and it is only through working together that we can find a new path forward focused on how to best serve our students. We continue to acknowledge that these reductions are not desired, are not in the best interest of our students, staff, or community. However, they are a fiscal necessity.”
Pressure on the district to move forward with budget cuts has escalated in the time since Cammack announced district management’s impasse declaration in March, with the county office of education downgrading the district’s financial status from “positive” to “qualified” last month, and warning of the dire financial straits facing the district should it fail to reach an agreement on budget cuts with SRVEA, the only one of the three unions representing district employees with which it has not secured an agreement on budget cuts.
Without the tentative agreement being ratified, Cammack said that the district is “released” from the mediation process that the agreement had resulted from, with fact-finding being the next step. He noted that part of the fact-finding process could still include an opportunity for the two parties “to reach an agreement in a facilitated mediation session.” However, if no agreement is reached during that process, Cammack said it would mean “the negotiations process is terminated.”
“At that time, each party is permitted to act unilaterally,” Cammack said. “The District may impose budget reductions, and the union may withhold services through a strike. SRVEA leadership has already communicated with their members about a possible strike at or around the beginning of the next school year.”
Finco said that a strike would be a last resort on the part of SRVEA members.
“Let me say this clearly – no one wants to strike,” Finco said. “No one. I’ve personally reached out to Superintendent Cammack, and I’ve asked him to bring our teams back to the table to fix the language.”
Finco noted that returning to the table would not need to interfere with the impasse process currently underway, but urged district management to not “go backwards.”
“Do not walk away from what we built in the tentative agreement,” Finco said. “If we’re going to get back to a place of mutual trust, we must honor the work done in good faith and we must be willing to fix what needs to be fixed so that we can get a ratified agreement.”
Cammack said that the district remained committed to reaching an agreement with SRVEA, and said that unilateral implementation of budget reductions – or a strike – “is not something we want for our students, our staff, or our community.”
“We remain fully committed to reaching an agreement via the negotiations process at Fact Finding, just as we believed we had accomplished via the mediation process,” Cammack said.
The fact-finding process is set to consist of establishing a three-person panel – one selected by district management, one by SRVEA, and one neutral party – that will hear from both sides and issue a report detailing their findings. This process “often includes recommendations for a potential settlement,” Cammack said.
