Issue link: http://educator.cta.org/i/1539593
a teacher in front of every classroom," Fisher said when SCTA won the tentative agreement. "We stayed strong, and as a result we now have a contract that will help us attract and retain staff and provide our members with modest raises." e contract win, negotiated by SCTA's then-150-member strong bargaining team, rejected the district's proposed take- aways on health insurance and included on-schedule raises for educators, off-schedule payments and health and safety improvements. e strike built a lively movement for public schools in communities throughout Sacramento, with parents in some neighborhoods taking active roles at daily pickets. Parents also lobbied their school board members to support educators — including local leaders in the making Jasjit Singh and Taylor Kayatta. 2022–2024 Flipping the School Board Powered by the inspiring victory of #SacCitySolidarity in the strike, Singh and Kayatta decided to run against two incumbents on the SCUSD school board that fall. Along with educator and CTA member Tara Jeane, the three challengers had the potential to shift the power structure on the board. SCTA members put in the effort to make it so — walking every precinct and knocking on more than 44,000 doors in the three board districts to make sure voters knew that Jeane, Kayatta and Singh were the choice of Sacramento educators. Election Day 2022 was a massive victory for SCTA and Sacra- mento public schools, grounded in the structures and organizing culture built over the previous seven years, with all three can- didates winning election to the school board. is meant that SCTA had helped elect a majority of the school board and shifted power in the district. Superintendent Aguilar was out of a job by the middle of the next year. "Flipping the board was a big moment of change for our dis- trict and a huge victory for our Sac City Unified community," says Vanessa Cudabac, the SCTA member (and now second vice president) who led the union's political field operation. "Voters had finally had enough of a school board that rubber stamped an unpopular and ineffective superintendent, and they joined us in making the change our district needed. It was time to close the book on that chapter and re-center our students and families in SCUSD's decisions." SCTA flexed its powerful organizing and political muscles again in 2024, supporting four candidates ( Jose Navarro, April Ybarra, Chinua Rhodes and Michael Benjamin) for school board and winning all four — meaning that every current member of the SCUSD board is now supported by local educators. "These victories were only possible through the efforts of the entire SCTA membership, who have been willing to make financial contributions to give educators a powerful voice in electing and holding accountable the leaders of our school district," Davis Milevsky says. "So many members knocked on doors, made phone calls, wrote letters, attended meetings and did the hard work to help our candidates win — these wins belong to all of us." 2025 Historic Contract Victory SCTA continued the progress made following the 2022 strike and 2023 contract win, reaching agreement after five months of negotiations and before the previous contract expired for the first time in decades. " Flipping the board was a big moment of change for our district and a huge victory forourSacCityUnified community. It was time to re-center our students and families in SCUSD'sdecisions." — SCTA 2nd Vice President Vanessa Cudabac SCTA-supported SCUSD School Board members Tara Jeane, Jasjit Singh, Lavinia Grace Phillips, Taylor Kayatta and Chinua Rhodes, after election day victory in 2022. 38 cta.org Organizing