As California dishes out $4.1 billion to school districts through 2031 to transform thousands of campuses into full-service community schools, teachers are demanding that parents, community leaders as well as educators have a say in how a district’s allocation is spent and that the initiative is sustainable in the long-term.
West Contra Costa Unified administrators say they also want the community to have a say in the program’s rollout, but the district and the teachers union, United Teachers of Richmond, are at odds over how to formalize the community input. United Teachers of Richmond, or UTR, has proposed making it a part of their contract, but district officials would prefer to do it through a memorandum of understanding. Besides pay, the disagreement on community schools is one of the top issues holding up months of contract negotiations between UTR and the district.
“To make the community school strategy transformational, we need to have the strongest accountability measure, which would be a legally binding contract,” said Francisco Ortiz, vice president of the United Teachers of Richmond.
