“OUR SITE REPS ARE SO IMPORTANT,” says Nikki Milevsky, president of Sacramento City Teachers Association (SCTA). “They have their fingers on the pulse of what is going on in the school sites.”

The state’s capital was the site of some hardcore grassroots organizing over the past few years, with educators building a massive movement and putting it all on the line to win resources for their students and save Sacramento public schools.

Powered by their inspiring unity, SCTA members won an inspiring list of victories in less than two years: a historic contract that ended their eight-day strike along with SEIU Local 1021 in Spring 2022, flipping the Sacramento City Unified (SCUSD) school board in Fall 2022, leading to the end of the reign of the belligerent former superintendent, and approval of a new contract that will help attract and retain the educators that Sacramento students deserve. And SCTA leadership says none of it would have been possible without committed members at strong local school sites and the site reps who worked to organize them.

“We are only as strong as our rank-and-file members — and they are only as strong as their site reps,” says SCTA First Vice President David Fisher, who was president during the strike.

For most members, site representatives are the face of their local association, serving as the contact point for all union information and surfacing issues from the site to be addressed by local association leadership. For two decades, Lori Jablonski has been a site rep at McClatchy High School, SCUSD’s largest school, supporting between 80 and 120 members with issues ranging from scheduling and class sizes to disciplinary matters. She says site reps also play an important role in helping new educators navigate their first years in the field.

“We’re the personification of the union. We exist to protect the interests of our members on campus,” she says. “I enjoy getting to know our membership and helping to problem-solve, so little things don’t turn into big things.”

Site representatives are the first point of contact when members have a question, concern or problem on the job — making them a crucial part of building trust and power at work sites and local associations as a whole. Ingrid Hutchins, transitional kindergarten teacher and site representative at Golden Empire Elementary School, says SCTA’s comprehensive site rep program is a deliberate effort, building relationships at school sites and creating a culture where educators know they always have someone in their corner.

“When we have strong site reps and a strong rep support system, we have people who will say ‘this is not OK,” says Hutchins, a member of the SCTA Executive Board. “Having reps at every site has strengthened our union. Our members know they have a voice and it feels like nothing is impossible.”

Like many school nurses in SCTA, Nho Le-Hinds hadn’t really been active until district management tried to bring in a telemedicine contractor a few years back without even discussing the matter with their dedicated 20-plus school nurses, who had numerous safety concerns about the idea. When management refused to listen to their voices, Le-Hinds turned to SCTA leadership, who set up meetings and helped the school nurses organize to fight off telemedicine. That victory was the wind in her sails in becoming a site rep; for five years she has kept her mostly itinerant school nurses informed, engaged and organized.

“We nurses go to our sites and work, and we don’t see each other very often,” Le-Hinds says, noting that organizing and fighting together escalated their collective activism. “I don’t think [we] had ever been at a school board meeting before.”

During the 2022 strike, the school nurses worked at the first aid tent during massive midday rallies, and Le-Hinds enlisted their support in the campaign that followed to flip the school board — with school nurses writing letters, walking precincts and knocking on voters’ doors to elect new district leadership.

High school math teacher and SCTA site rep Fernando Rodríguez also walked and knocked every weekend to flip three school board seats and elect leaders who value educator voices.

“We knew we needed to talk to everybody, and that’s exactly what we did. All we were asking for was for our students to have a live teacher in every classroom. It made it clear to people that we were fighting for their children,” Rodríguez says. “The change in leadership has shown how things can be better when we all have a common goal of representing ourselves, representing our community and serving our schools.”

While the site reps were quick to credit Milevsky, Fisher and SCTA leadership for their vision for Sacramento schools, the leaders were just as fast to point to site reps’ willingness to commit to each other to fight for better, together.

“A strong site rep program builds a bond that cannot be broken,” Milevsky says. “Our site reps are leaders at their schools who shine a light on what our educators and students really need. They understand that an injury to one is an injury to all.”

Third grade teacher Marcie Amparo volunteered to be a site rep before she quite understood what the responsibility entailed. When she started as a teacher, there was no rep at her site and there hadn’t been one for years, but she stepped up, learned as much as possible and helped build a new culture at Kimble Elementary School.

“It’s empowering to get excited about a shared vision,” Amparo says. “Once teachers get excited about something, there’s really no stopping us.”

Milevsky says a big part of building power at sites is taking advantage of the valuable time that educators get to organize together. Jablonski says that means taking full advantage of union time during school site staff meetings. She says being deliberate about using that time to share information and resources and surface concerns is essential to maintaining a cohesive unit and building power.

“Here at McClatchy, that time has become almost sacred,” Jablonski says. “When it came time to organize and strike, we were ready to go. That wouldn’t have been possible without the site rep program and how serious we take it.”

Le-Hinds echoes the sentiment, adding that face-to-face communication and organizing is key to building the relationships necessary to effect change.

“I feel like we are powerful now and I didn’t feel that way when I was just reading emails,” she says.

Fourth grade teacher Ricardo Martinez says it’s all about building community at school sites. The site rep at Bowling Green Charter School for two decades, Martinez is a go-to when workers need help — whether it’s his fellow educators and SCTA members or front office staff and yard-duty aides.

“People are in need of leadership, of someone to talk to,” says Martinez. “Power can advocate. To function as a school, we need to be working together.”

At a school or site without a union representative? Interested in speaking up for your colleagues and building power for your students? Reach out to your chapter leadership and ask how you  can become a site rep.
Photo portraits by Christie Gimpel, christiegimpel.com.

Winning with #SacCitySolidarity

SCTA members went on strike for eight days in Spring 2022, along with SEIU Local 1021 members in a glorious display of worker solidarity in the streets of Sacramento. With the rallying cry that every student deserved a teacher in their classroom, educators built a movement that captivated the capital city and saw a group of district moms occupy the school district main office to move the
district to an agreement. After eight days, SCTA won an agreement that will help attract and retain quality educators and address the district’s staffing crisis, as well as health and safety contract language improvements.

Organizing and Winning on Election Day

At the center of SCTA’s problems in SCUSD: Superintendent Jorge Aguilar, whose legacy is his refusal to collaborate with educators in any way, regardless of the impact on students. SCTA leaders knew that to make any progress on important opportunities like community schools, they needed leaders on the school board who would listen to educators — and that meant unseating incumbents.

Educators turned to two community members who showed leadership in supporting educators during the strike (Jasjit Singh and Taylor Kayatta) along with fellow educator and NEA Board member Tara Jeane to run for trustee seats, focusing the power of their robust site rep structure on talking to as many voters as possible and electing a new majority to the school board. The candidates and their supporters, including many SCTA members, spent thousands of hours knocking on more than 43,000 doors and talking to voters about building the schools that all Sacramento students deserve.

When all the votes were counted, the organizing, precinct walking and voter education efforts were successful in electing all three candidates. In June, Aguilar resigned as superintendent after reaching a mutual decision with the school board.

Addressing Staffing Crisis With Contract Agreement

SCTA members in September ratified a contract agreement that will help attract and retain educators, so every Sacramento student has a full-time teacher.
The highlights:
• Ongoing, across-the-board 10% pay increase;
• Additional 6% increase for staff in difficult-to-fill positions, including special education teachers, education audiologists, school nurses, social workers and school psychologists;
• Increase in substitute teacher pay to $355 per day — a more than $100 increase.