Cotati-Rohnert Park educators set to strike Thursday over wage dispute

Teachers in the Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District announced their plan Monday to strike by Thursday amid a deepening dispute over wages.

The union and the school district have been trading pay proposals for nearly a year, and the district’s latest offer was rejected by the Rohnert Park-Cotati Educators Association, which represents 320 members. The union signaled it would instruct its members to strike starting Thursday if no agreement is reached.

“It feels like this push and pull of us versus the district, when it should be everybody work together to fix this,” said Anna Lemmon, a chemistry teacher at Rancho Cotate High School who says her monthly pay has increased by just $200 in four years of working for the district, while her rent has increased by $500.

Heading from her classroom to a picket line in the coming days “is nobody’s first choice,” she said. “This is everybody’s last choice.”

A strike would disrupt the lives of approximately 6,000 students and families in the Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District, which is the third-largest district in Sonoma County.

The district’s latest verbal offer included a 3% ongoing wage increase in the current year, plus a bonus equivalent to an additional 3% wage bump, for a total 6% increase. The district also offered 5% in 2022-23 and a wage increase equivalent to cost of living increases in ‘23-’24.

But the union contends the offer does not push the district’s average teacher salary close enough to the state average. In 2020, average pay in Cotati-Rohnert Park was 20% lower than the average teacher in a unified school district. Across California, that average was $83,901, and in Cotati-Rohnert Park, it was $63,878.

The strike announcement comes days after the release of an independent fact-finder’s report, in which the state-appointed neutral party recommended a three-year agreement with wage increases of 6%, 5% and a cost of living bump of 3.6% in the third year. Teachers have been asking for the district to meet that recommendation of an approximate 14.6% raise over three years.

The fact-finder did acknowledge that the school district would face a “significant burden” to offer 6% ongoing for the current year. However, the report said the district would clearly be able to offer a 6% one-time payment.

The district’s latest offer strikes a balance, offering half of the 6% ongoing and the other half as a bonus. But teachers remain adamant that the district not base any pay hike on one-time bonuses but increases to the base salary scale as whole.

“RPCEA has always maintained that any wage increases need to be ongoing, and we are not interested in any off-schedule payments,” said Denise Tranfaglia, union president. “These bonuses are one-time, do not bring us closer to the statewide average nor make us more competitive, do not count toward retirement, and are heavily taxed. We have reiterated this to the district since last year.”

The district's latest offer already amounts to a strain on its budget, said Superintendent Mayra Perez. Meeting the teachers’ latest proposal, while giving matching raises to the other unionized employees and district administrators, would drain its reserves and force it into a deficit within two years, she said.

Perez said she was “a little disappointed” to hear the union was moving to strike in response to the district’s offer, which it made Friday after release of the fact finder’s report.

“We tried to offer what the report said, and we took a little bit of a risk there,” she said Monday. “We were really hoping to settle, but that didn’t happen.”

Custodians, administrative assistants and cafeteria workers, who are members of the California School Employees Association, and will therefore be required to clock in and keep schools safe and running.

But another group of about 140 unionized district employees, represented by Service Employees International Union, are planning to join the picket line in a sympathy strike, said Bryna Wigmore, president of the local. Those include classroom aides, library assistants, campus supervisors and others.

“We work very, very closely with the teachers,” Wigmore said. “RPCEA has always supported us and we support them.”

Perez said she and other administrators were in the early stages Monday of planning to keep the district’s campuses open and students occupied in the event of a strike.

“Obviously not a normal day of instruction,” Perez said. “But we will have activities for the kids to make sure they feel safe and comfortable and happy.”

The school board will meet in closed session to discuss the labor dispute for a portion of its meeting scheduled for Tuesday, March 8. Teachers plan to show up in force at the meeting and asked community members to also come and speak.

The union in social media posts Monday said one way families can support educators during a strike is to join them on the picket line. If possible, keeping children home from school is another way to support, the union said.

Colletta DeCosta, mother of a first and fifth grader at Richard Crane Elementary School, said she wasn’t sure what she would do in the event of a strike.

Both parents in the family work full-time, she said, and babysitters are far from a cheap for them if school isn’t available.

DeCosta said she had mixed feelings about the planned strike, especially after students have already endured so much missed instructional time due to the pandemic.

“Obviously teachers have been way underpaid for way too many years,” DeCosta said. “They should be standing up for what they deserve in this instance.”

“But it’s also rough for us,” DeCosta said. “They haven’t been very clear about what’s going to happen for the kids and for school.”

Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified began discussions with the teachers union about a three-year contract in the summer of 2021. In September, the parties reached impasse and union members overwhelmingly voted in November to strike if negotiations failed.

The Cotati-Rohnert Park school board on Feb. 28 approved a resolution granting Perez authority to respond to the strike in several ways, including shifting responsibilities among remaining staff members or hiring substitutes at increased pay rates.

Both the teachers’ union and the district said they want to continue speaking this week to try to reach an agreement. But neither could say when the negotiating teams would meet next.

“Nobody wants to strike at all, but we need the (school) board to direct the superintendent to prioritize us,” Tranfaglia said in a February interview.

Last week, a state-appointed neutral fact-finder reported out recommendations for a three-year collective bargaining agreement after hearing from both the district and the union since January.

In his report, Yuval Miller recommended a 6% salary increase in the first year, a 5% increase in the second year, and an increase in the third year equal to the cost of living increase, which for now is projected at around 3.6%.

The recommendation, totaling approximately 15% over three years, is only slightly below the union’s opening request in 2021: 19% over three years.

Before the fact-finding report was released, the district’s last offer included a 3% increase this year, 3% the following year, and 1% for the third year, with a $2,000 one-time bonus. Teachers rejected the offer, saying the wage increases were too low and the bonus didn’t count as a pay boost.

If the work stoppage occurs, it will be the first in Sonoma County since 2019, when teachers in West Sonoma County Union High School District went on strike for three days due to a dispute over wage increases.

You can reach Staff Writer Kaylee Tornay at 707-521-5250 or kaylee.tornay@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @ka_tornay. Reach Staff Writer Alana Minkler at 707-526-8511 or alana.minkler@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @alana_minkler.