The Abridged version:
- In the race to keep Sacramento City Unified financially afloat, the school district locked horns with the Sacramento County Office of Education. That conflict escalated in recent weeks.
- What was a local fight grew into a contest at the state level. The organization overseeing all county education offices is seeking a legal change based on the situation at Sacramento City Unified.
- As lines are drawn between unions, agencies and elected officials, parents say they are frustrated by the politicization.
Sacramento City Unified is locked in a hyperpolitical battle with the Sacramento County Office of Education that has spilled into state-level contests.
What started earlier this summer with an agreement between the school district and its largest labor union, Sacramento City Teachers Association, has garnered the attention of state public officials and county leaders across California.
Sacramento County Superintendent Dave Gordon and his appointed fiscal advisor, Luz Cázares, nixed the new contract with teachers in July.
So, district leaders turned to State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond.
Sign Up for the Homeroom Newsletter
A weekly email with news and insights into Sacramento area schools and how it impacts your students.
Thurmond ultimately chose not to overturn the county-level decision. But in a letter to Gordon, the state superintendent threatened to intervene going forward, over the county office’s authority.
His warning alarmed county superintendents across California, said Kindra Britt, spokesperson for California County Superintendents.
The organization launched a last-minute scramble to change state education law, before the legislative session ends Monday.
Sacramento school district leaders decried the move, calling it a bad faith effort to take authority from local leaders.
Meanwhile, parents say they are frustrated by the politicization.
“My youngest is in kindergarten,” said Katie Heidorn, parent of three students. “I want this system to be okay for the next 13-plus years.”
What do county leaders want to change?
The proposal by county superintendents involves changing a piece of California education law that currently allows the state superintendent to step in as overseers if they determine the county officials’ actions “are not effective in resolving the financial problems of the school district.”
This provision has never been used before. But Thurmond said in his letter last month he was ready to be the first.
In a message to legislators dated Aug. 13, California County Superintendents proposed changing the law to require the state board of education president to sign off on any intervention by the state superintendents.
“County superintendents must be able to make difficult decisions and speak with candor to keep a school district solvent and ensure continuous instruction to students,” the organization’s memo reads. “Unilateral state intervention creates the risk that the perspectives of local leaders and communities will be replaced by state politicians.”
Britt said while the dilemma in Sacramento “unearthed this loophole,” their fight goes beyond one school district.
“If we didn’t feel this sense of urgency, we wouldn’t act,” she said.
The county officials face a tight window to see the measure through. The current legislative session ends Monday, and lawmakers will not return until after the November election.
How is the state superintendent already involved?
School district leaders took issue with the proposal and its timing, in a letter to legislators this week.
“A major change in who has authority during a fiscal crisis should not be added in the final days of the legislative session without full discussion and input from the school districts and locally elected boards that will be directly affected,” trustees wrote.
Though Thurmond has not formally taken the oversight reins, he and other California Department of Education officials have in recent weeks joined regular meetings between the county office and school district.
Sacramento City United Superintendent Cancy McArn said in those meetings, state officials have provided the kind of collaborative help the district wasn’t getting from Gordon and the county.
“The support we need is to look at the plan and say, ‘Good plan. Looks like it’s missing this piece. Did you guys think about this?'” McArn said. “We don’t need poke, poke, poke, poke, poke, poke. ‘Here’s what sucks about your plan.'”
Is this a ‘state takeover’?
Sacramento City Unified leaders have spent the last year doggedly trying to avoid state receivership.
In that scenario, a cashless district turns to the Legislature for emergency funds, in essence a loan. The district has to pay back the amount with interest, a process that typically takes years, sometimes even decades.
And while they are paying the Legislature back, the county office of education picks an administrator to solo-lead the district. The superintendent is out of a job, and the locally elected school board loses their authority, demoted to an advisory role.
This is not what Sacramento City Unified is looking to Thurmond for.
“We are not asking for any state loan or any state money,” McArn said.
Instead, what district officials said they want is Thurmond to potentially intervene and be their fiscal adviser, if they continue to have issues with the county office. In that case, McArn and the school board would keep their current authority.
What is the status of the teachers agreement?
The union contract at the heart of the conflict, meanwhile, remains in up in the air, McArn said.
Part of the agreement adjusted where the district pulled money to pay for retired teachers’ benefits, from the general fund to a special reserve trust. That change was supposed to afford the district about $48 million in 2026-27. They are facing an anticipated deficit of roughly $150 million.
Gordon and Cázares with the county office argued the agreement would hurt more than help, citing concerns about a contract extension through 2030.
District leaders pushed back, saying they are well within their right to use the rainy-day fund and that trying to negotiate concessions with the union would likely result in a costly teacher strike.
And despite the county’s recission, the California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which manages the trust, has already sent the first monthly withdrawal to the district, as first reported by The Sacramento Bee.
CalPERS has said they will not be asking for the money back. Gordon, in a letter to the district, called on Sacramento City Unified to return it still.
“It’s a little bit in limbo,” McArn said.
