If you are a parent of an AUSD student or a homeowner in Alameda (whose property value is attributable in large part to the quality of our local public schools), please consider emailing the Alameda Board of Education today in support of teachers in their contract negotiations.
An Alameda Post article from yesterday has more context about their negotiations over compensation, healthcare, and class-size caps.
In terms of the bigger picture: The overall challenge here is California's low school funding compared to our high cost of living. I trust that despite this specific challenging decision for the Board of Trustees, everyone wants to work together to pursue additional school support at the local and state levels.
However, certain revenue streams are less predictable than they used to be, so these extra funds on the positive side of the ledger may be more finite than in the past. And there are many open, pressing needs across our schools and our city. Elected leaders on the Board of Education and on the City Council do have difficult jobs to perform in terms of balancing tradeoffs and budgetary priorities.
Competitive compensation helps our local institutions retain talented staff members and recruit the next generation from the Bay Area's regional employment market, benefiting all of us who rely on public services here in Alameda.
In case you want to copy and paste their addresses into your email client right now, here is how you can reach the Board of Education members:
rlalonde@alamedaunified.org,hlittle@alamedaunified.org,jennwilliams@alamedaunified.org,chahnel@alamedaunified.org,gklym@alamedaunified.org
The board meeting is this evening at 6:30 p.m., so your email in support of the teachers would be most useful if sent before then.