No Extra Days To Be Added At End Of School Year After Sacramento Teacher Strike, District Says

SACRAMENTO (CBS13) – No extra days are being added to the school year, the Sacramento City Unified School District announced on Thursday.

The decision comes after uncertainty over the eight days of instruction that were lost when teachers went on strike.

Sac City Unified says they were not able to reach an agreement with the teachers union over making up the lost days.

Sacramento City Teachers Association President David Fisher said they worked to figure out a way to make up the lost time.

"We gave the district yet another comprehensive proposal that would have allowed students to make up the lost instruction time and avoid millions of penalties," he said.

But Fisher said the district's contract included stipulations the union didn't agree with.

"If someone had COVID or was in a car accident, they would not have been able to take that off," he said.

The district said they were simply working to guarantee teachers would be available for students if the year was extended.

"We said 20% of our employees could take personal time so we had sufficient staff," said district Superintendent Jorge Aguilar.

The continued disagreements led to a final decision: no more school for students. But now the district faces $47 million in penalties for the lost instructional time which is required by the state.

"Rather than rush to get a deal done that would leave our schools with staffing concerns, we decided it was best to just end the school year as scheduled and look for another way to recover the valuable learning time our students have lost," the district said in a statement.

Aguilar said they will pursue a waiver that would allow the district to make up twice as many days by 2024 in order to avoid the major fine.

Instead of adding days at the end of the 2021-22 year, Sac City Unified would add a total of 16 days of instruction over the next two years.

"It is so important for us that each of our students make up that lost instructional time," said Aguilar.

The district says the 2022-23 school year is still scheduled to start on Sept. 1.