We Can’t Wait is our statewide coordinated bargaining campaign uniting 32 local chapters with 80,000 educators serving over 1 million students. We are organizing with our communities to demand safe, stable, fully staffed schools, and competitive wages and benefits. Together we have the power to protect and improve public education in California. The historic recent agreement achieved by the Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA) sets the precedent for establishing new standards for working and learning conditions in school districts across the state.
SCTA achieved these standards through years of intentional and strategic organizing, including mobilizing for a highly successful strike in 2022, electing a pro-educator, pro-student school board, and moving the district’s administrative leadership away from an adversarial relationship.“
We fully integrated our organizing and political work around a long-term vision to re-make the Sacramento City Unified School District the destination district for California, starting from the worksite and working out from there.” – SCTA President Nikki Milevsky
Here is a summary of SCTA’s contract standards in each of the three We Can’t Wait coordinated statewide demands: fully staffed schools, competitive wage and benefits, and safe and stable schools:
Highest Wages in Region
SCTA’s fight to make Sac City a destination district has led to the highest salaries in the region, turning the tide on recruitment and retention. Since the strike in April 2022, educators’ salaries will have increased by more than 30% for SCTA members, with even greater increases in critical staffing areas like SPED positions (38%) and Speech Language Pathologists (over 46%), effective July 1, 2026. Note: K-12 Sac City educators have a 184-day calendar.
- K-12 – Highest (20 years) $137,839
- Special Ed – Highest $146,110
- Special Ed – (SLP) Highest $154,876
Highest Substitute Rate in the Country
The daily rates for visiting/substitute teachers remain the highest in the nation and increased to over $400 per day.
Benefits
Fully Employer-Paid Health Insurance: Employee and Dependents
Retiree Benefits
Retiree Health Benefits for Employees Age 55 with 20 years, Age 60 with 15 years
Enforceable Class Sizes & Caseloads
The SCTA contract provides for: lower class sizes and SPED caseloads, ratios that allow students to receive meaningful support from psychologists, social workers, nurses, and counselors, subcontracting protections that force the district to redirect those resources back into the classroom, with enforceable standards.
Class Size
- Elementary: K-3: 24 to 1
- Elementary Intermediate: 30 to 1
- Secondary: core areas: 32 to 1
SPED Caseloads
- Elementary SDC Mild/Moderate: 15
- Secondary SDC Mild/Moderate: 16
- SDC Moderate/Severe: 13
Aide Support Staffing
- SDC Mild/Moderate classes shall have two six (6) hour aides.
- SDC Mild/Severe classes shall have two six (6) hour aides.
- School site RSP teachers will be assigned an instructional aide for the duration of their instructional assignment.
- Classroom teachers who have an aide assigned to assist with students of special needs students shall direct those aides, consistent with a student’s IEP.
Ratios for Psychologists, School Nurses, and Social Workers
- 1 per 750 students to 1 per 500 in 27-28.
Additional Staffing Standards:
- 1 librarian per secondary school
- 1 Program Specialist per 600 students
- 1 Community Schools training specialist per Community School site
- At least 1 Reading Intervention Teacher per Elementary school site; 2 at sites with 200 or more students and 70% or higher UPP
- Creation of a jointly-developed Multi-tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) program with real intervention and critical staffing support, which includes a MTSS Specialist at each school site as MTSS is implemented throughout the District.
- Overage payments of $90 per day, in all staffing areas.
- General education classes will have a maximum student enrollment of 1/3 students per class with IEPs to ensure that students get the support they need.
Protections Against Subcontracting & Outside Contracts
Outside contractors may not be used to do bargaining unit work without the expressed written agreement of SCTA, and if such work is temporarily contracted out, regular employees may not be required to cover the duties of the outside contractor, except in an emergency.
Artificial Intelligence
AI may not be used to replace bargaining unit work or perform bargaining unit work without the expressed written agreement of SCTA.
In the fight for safe and stable schools and against layoffs, SCTA’s wins in staffing, subcontracting, and artificial intelligence are a bulwark against staffing reductions and the contracting out of vital student services. SCTA’s settlement also ensures a safer and more stable learning environment for staff and students by setting standards on supervision duty, restorative practices, cyberbullying, leaves, academic freedom, testing, a real voice on hiring committees, community schools, and more.
Concerted Activity
SCTA members strengthened their right to engage in collective actions to protect their students and schools, including taking action during the term of contract.
No Unnecessary Testing
The District may not require any test not specifically-mandated by state or federal law without agreement with SCTA. This means more time for teaching and student support.
Adequate Support for Teachers
All teachers will be provided the necessary components for professional teaching including the following: an appropriately furnished workstation, adequate supplies and technology, a functioning computer with internet access, access to an outside phone, adequate instructional materials for all students using district provided curriculum/materials and/or standards aligned resources, copies of content standards or other documents of expected outcomes, necessary safety equipment, and any other specifically required by the teacher’s job.
SCTA Representatives on Hiring Committees
SCTA’s representatives on certificated hiring committees are determined by SCTA members, not administration; Only one administrator is included on the hiring panel unless SCTA representatives agree to include others. The principal is required by the contract to follow the recommendation of the committee even if he or she disagrees with the recommendation.
Personal and Academic Freedom
Educators are protected from “censorship or restraint which interferes with their obligation to pursue truth in the performance of their teaching function,” including the right “to discuss controversial issues, provided every effort is made to present all relative points of view.”
Jointly-Developed Restorative Disciplinary Matrix
The parties will negotiate an updated restorative disciplinary matrix to complement the additional interventions provided through MTSS.
Additional Support for Staff Who Are Subject to Cyberbullying or Assaulted at Work The District will provide support for staff who have been subjected to cyberbullying, and educators who are forced to miss work because of an assault will receive three additional paid days in addition to any other leaves they are entitled to.
Growing Our Power, Increasing Pressure on Districts and Our State
The Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA) contract demonstrates that when educators and communities unite, we can win the schools our students deserve.
SCTA President Nikki Milevsky: “What union members and parents have won in Sacramento is a powerful testament to what our organizing can achieve. If we can do it, every local chapter in California can do it.”
TRUE President Brittoni Ward: “These standards prove that a better future for our public schools is not just an aspiration, but a winnable fight. If SCTA can do it, we can do it too. Twin Rivers educators and students deserve no less.“
The SCTA agreement raises the bar and establishes the statewide standard for what we all deserve.
Read More About the We Can’t Wait campaign in Labor Note.
