The following statement was issued today by the Sacramento City Unified School District Board:

“The Sacramento City Unified School District has a serious teacher shortage, which is made even more challenging by statewide a shortage of substitute teachers.  

“One step the District is trying to take to address this challenge is to increase pay for substitute teachers with the intention of attracting more substitutes to teach at Sac City Unified. The District cannot implement this plan unilaterally – it requires agreement from the Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA).

“The District sent its proposed MOU about increasing pay for substitutes to SCTA on September 16, 2021. We were encouraged when SCTA sent the District an email on October 26 stating agreement with the District’s plan to increase substitute teacher pay. The District responded within hours by sending SCTA a signed version of the MOU to memorialize this agreement. Since then, and despite a negotiations meeting on this topic this week, 15 days have passed without any agreement from SCTA on this MOU.

“Sac City Unified cannot implement this plan and start the increased pay for substitute teachers without SCTA officially signing the MOU. Doing so would create ambiguity and expose the District to legal risk.

“Each day that passes without a signed MOU is a day that Sac City Unified cannot increase pay for substitute teachers, which is an important step in addressing our District’s teacher shortage.

“We urge SCTA to sign the MOU immediately so that Sac City Unified can begin to offer increased pay to substitute teachers. We also strongly encourage swift action to reach agreement on the District’s additional proposals to address the teacher shortage.”

For more information about these proposals and negotiations between Sac City Unified and our labor partners, please see a November 5 update on the District’s Labor Negotiations webpage: https://www.scusd.edu/negotiations-updates.