SACRAMENTO, CA — The Sacramento City Unified School District announced today that it had reached a vital agreement with the United Professional Educators (UPE) outlining the role of principals in distance learning during the period of school closures.

“I am pleased to announce this agreement with United Professional Educators (UPE), who have helped lead the way through this unprecedented health crisis by putting our students first,” said Sac City Unified Superintendent Jorge Aguilar. “This group of dedicated principals demonstrates continued leadership and partnership benefitting our students. This agreement moves us another important step forward to implement a distance learning plan that serves all Sac City Unified students.”

“UPE is proud of the hard work our members have done, and will continue to do, to support our teachers, support staff, students, and parents in providing all of SCUSD students a high quality and equitable distance learning experience,” said UPE President Judy Farina.

The agreement includes a commitment by Sac City Unified principals to:

• Complete training on the District’s formal distance learning plan, Universal Design for Learning
• Participate in professional development on the Districts’ preferred online instructional platform, Google Classroom
• Continue to provide leadership regarding distance learning during the period of school closure

Implementing a distance learning plan that serves all Sac City Unified students remains the district’s focus in its critical negotiations over the coming days. The district plans to begin a formal distance learning program on April 13. The district continues to engage in discussions with its labor partners to develop and implement a distance learning plan during the period of school closures. 

As part of its plan, the district will provide laptops for its students. On April 3, Sac City Unified began distributing computers to students in need of digital access during the school closures, distributing approximately 3,500 laptops to students throughout the district. The district will continue to deploy additional laptops during the week of our scheduled Spring Break in order to meet the needs of students starting April 13. 

This agreement with UPE is consistent with the orders from the Governor (link to March 13 Exec. Order; March 19 Order/Guidance) and direction from the State Superintendent of Public Instruction to provide Essential Educational Services. It is also consistent with corresponding CDE-issued guidance to help K-12 education leaders meet the needs of all students affected by school closures, with an emphasis on assisting low-income children and those with disabilities.

Additional Resources for Students

The district offers students and families a number of resources to support students’ needs. Supporting nutritional needs, the district offers meal pick-up at school sites throughout its service area. By April 3, the district had provided its students with over 375,000 meals since the beginning of the closure on March 16. The district continues to look for additional volunteers to help with that effort. To volunteer, visit www.scusd.edu/volunteermeals. Meal distribution will continue with reduced hours and locations during the week of April 6 which would normally be the district’s spring break.

On March 16, the district announced a partnership with KVIE to provide students in the Sacramento region access to educational programming that supports standards-based learning while schools are closed to mitigate spread of COVID-19.

Additional information and resources at www.scusd.edu/COVID-19