Sacramento, CA - The Sacramento City Unified School District (SCUSD) and the Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA) have taken an important step toward reaching an agreement on how to recover school days and instructional time that were lost due to the strike, which began March 23rd.

Collaboration began on Friday, April 8th, toward finding the most effective and productive solution to address the loss of valuable learning time for our students when schools were closed to them from March 23-April 1 as a result of a strike by SCTA and SEIU Local 1021. SCUSD students missed approximately 2,400 minutes of learning due to the strike. 

California’s Education Code requires public schools to provide 180 days of instruction and a minimum number of instructional minutes based on grade level. To comply with the law and support the needs of our students, SCUSD must make up that time or face significant financial penalties. If the district does not take action to address the lost learning time, SCUSD estimates that penalties will cost the district $46 million dollars. The financial penalties can be reduced if the district takes steps to provide the instructional time owed to students.

“After more than two years of COVID-related learning disruptions we cannot shortchange our students on critical learning time,” said Sacramento City Unified School District Superintendent Jorge A. Aguilar. “We are committed to provide meaningful instructional days and minutes that our students need and deserve before the end of this school year, and appreciate the collaboration with labor partners to identify solutions.”  

Our families should know that options we are collaborating on with labor partners could include a limited extension of the school year and/or adding minutes to the school day. SCUSD is committed to finding the best possible solutions to provide this critical learning time for students that impose the least amount of further inconveniences to our families.

“Many of our SCUSD families are making plans for summer child care, camps, or vacations and this situation only creates more uncertainty for them. We are hopeful this collaborative process with SCTA will move swiftly so we can provide families with answers soon on how SCUSD will provide the instructional time our students deserve,” said SCUSD Board President Christina Pritchett.