Parents brace for Cotati-Rohnert Park teacher strike

With the largest teacher strike to hit Sonoma County in five years looming this week, parents of thousands of children in the Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District are bracing for the latest potential disruption of classroom instruction two years into the coronavirus pandemic.

More than 300 teachers who are pressing the district for better pay are set to begin a strike Thursday if no deal is reached.

The anticipated upheaval, affecting at least 6,000 families in the third-largest district, has parents wrestling with decisions on whether or not to send their children to campuses for dramatically reduced instruction.

Some campuses have announced plans for shorter school days, and the district is planning to bring in substitutes and lean on other school employees to keep classrooms open and safe.

Several parents said in interviews they plan to keep their kids at home in solidarity with the teachers.

Renee Olsen, mother of two students at University Elementary School at La Fiesta in Rohnert Park, plans to do just that.

“What they’re asking for isn’t unreasonable,” Olsen said. “They deserve a fair, living wage.”

District trustees were meeting Tuesday night in closed session to discuss the impasse with teachers, who were expected to rally outside beforehand.

Monday’s strike announcement came days after the release of an independent fact-finder’s report, in which a 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, represented by the Rohnert Park Cotati Educators Association, have been asking for the district to meet that recommendation of an approximate 14.6% raise over three years.

But meeting that proposal, while giving matching raises to the other unionized employees and district administrators, would drain district reserves and force it into a deficit within two years, said Superintendent Mayra Perez.

The district's latest offer is 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.

Parents were planning Tuesday to pull together to support teachers in various ways if Thursday’s predicted strike begins. Some intended to show up to Tuesday’s 6 p.m. school board meeting in support of the union’s demands, while others said they would join teachers on the picket line.

Several said they believed the district was misplacing its priorities if it declines or says it isn’t able to offer the pay raises at the level recommended by an independent fact-finder last week, which teachers are now demanding their employer meet.

“I want good, qualified teachers to continue educating my kids,” said Heather Cain, mother of a sixth-grade son at Lawrence Jones Middle School and a daughter in fourth grade at Marguerite Hahn Elementary School. Her family lives in Santa Rosa, but she purposefully chose to transfer her children to Cotati-Rohnert Park schools.

“At this point, I’m sure they’re going to strike,” Cain said of the teachers. “We prefer there to be a quicker resolution, but we will stick with them through the end.”

The union on Monday morning announced its intention to strike Thursday, after rejecting a three-year deal the school district offered after the state-appointed fact-finder’s report was published.

Teachers have maintained the district’s offer is not in line with the fact-finder report, though the district argues it is. The parties have not met since Friday.

Valerie George, mother to two daughters at University Elementary School, said it is “definitely confusing” to determine which party is bringing the dispute to the point of strike.

“It’s confusing to try and figure out why they can’t find a middle ground,” she said. But after a moment’s pause, she added, “I don’t know why the district can’t just give (teachers) what they want.”

Mayra Perez, superintendent of the Cotati-Rohnert Park Unified School District, has said the district is pushing its financial limits with the offer already on the table. Bumping up the first year’s pay increase to 6% and offering comparable raises to the district’s other two labor unions and its administrators would push the district into a deficit, she said Monday.

While many parents expressed frustration with the prospect of a strike, they busied themselves with planning what to do with their children with teachers gone.

Erin Connaughton, who has a daughter in second grade and son in fourth grade at University Elementary School, is planning to keep her kids out of school and picket with the teachers when they can.

But Connaughton, like many parents, has a full-time job. So her elderly parents are going to be watching three kids — hers, plus her best friend’s kid who also goes to a school in the Cotati-Rohnert Park district.

How are they going to pull that off? “I have no idea,” Connaughton said.

Jasmine Jaramillo, who has a son in kindergarten at Evergreen Elementary School, is also keeping him home with his two younger siblings. She put out an offer on Facebook to watch other working parents’ kids if they choose to keep them home from school during the strike.

“I think it’ll be a huge disruption,” she said. “Kids are now relying on that schedule.”

But Jaramillo’s dedication to her son’s teacher motivates her not to cross the picket line, she said.

“Our kindergarten teacher is so amazing, I want to do anything I can to help her in return,” she said.

Tony Martin, father to a Technology Middle School student, said he was hesitant to keep his son at home for fear that his absences might count against him.

“It’s not very clear,” he said. “It’s a frustrating circumstance.”

But Perez said parents will be able to excuse any absences racked up during the strike in the same way they can on other days.

Still, parents expressed some trepidation over the uncertainty of how long classes might be upended by a strike. The pandemic kept local schoolchildren at home for an entire school year, and even this year, has led to repeated absences due to quarantine and isolation rules.

In a way, though, that softens the blow of losing more instructional days, George said.

“With every little cough and sniffle, my daughter has to stay home,” she said. “Another day or two isn’t really going to throw her over the edge or make her behind.”

Some parents, who got a taste of what teaching is like over the pandemic when schooling became virtual, said they more deeply appreciate the work educators do and therefore support their push for increased compensation.

“The school district is very important to us,” Connaughton said. “The teachers are very important. They just mean a lot to us, knowing what they went through over the pandemic.”

“I just really hope that the board does the right thing,” she said.

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.