Education
Leaders from United Teachers of Richmond updated parents and community members Tuesday evening on contract negotiations between the union and the West Contra Costa Unified School District. WCCUSD and UTR have been negotiating a new three-year teaching contract since January and declared an impasse on Aug. 19, triggering third-party mediation and a fact-finding process. “This is more than just a contract fight for us,” UTR President Francisco Ortiz told an audience of about 50 people at CoBiz Richmond. “We’re in…
Cuts to SNAP has Joseph Agredano feeling anxious. He is one of more than a quarter of a million community college students enrolled in CalFresh, the state’s version of the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. That assistance has been paused since Saturday, because the Trump administration stopped sending states money during the government shutdown. SNAP funds are expected to flow again soon, after two federal judges on Friday ordered the administration to resume the payments. In the meantime, Contra Costa…
Three years after California launched a savings program to help children pay for college, most families still haven’t claimed the money — and many don’t even know it’s there. The more than $2 billion program is designed to close the college access gap, especially for low-income families. But many Californians are missing out simply because they haven’t heard of it, said Cassandra DiBenedetto, executive director of the state-run ScholarShare Investment Board, which oversees the program. “Our biggest challenge is also…
With 98% of its members approving, the union representing teachers in the West Contra Costa Unified School District voted Tuesday to authorize its leaders to call a strike. Since January, United Teachers of Richmond has been negotiating a new contract with the district. On Aug. 19, the UTR declared an impasse, triggering third party mediation from the California Public Employment Relations Board. Since then, the sides have been in mediation sessions and are currently in the midst of a fact-finding…
Cars honked, megaphones blared and teachers chanted, “Education is a right, that is why we have to fight,” during a rally before Wednesday’s West Contra Costa Unified School District board meeting at DeJean Middle School. Since January, WCCUSD and United Teachers of Richmond have been negotiating a new three-year teachers’ contract. The previous contract expired in June. The union is pushing for higher pay, smaller class sizes and increased staffing to fill vacancies with credentialed teachers. The district is citing…
The West Contra Costa Unified School District board welcomed Cheryl Cotton, a former WCCUSD student, teacher, principal and administrator, back to the district Wednesday, naming her superintendent. In a unanimous vote, with Cinthia Hernandez absent, the board approved a three-year contract for Cotton at $325,000 a year, with a provision for $3,000 increases in the second and third years, contingent on her performance. She will start the job on June 20. Six community members — including a parent, a school counselor,…
“The Stakes” is a UC Berkeley Journalism project on executive orders and actions affecting Californians and their communities. Since President Donald Trump took office in January, Jessie Papalia has felt the panic and confusion among her students and their families at Bridges Academy Elementary in Oakland, a dual-language school with many students who have recently arrived in the United States. “The first week was rough. I had kids asking me if they could sleep at school because they were too…
Last in a two-part series examining West Contra Costa Unified School District student data. Read Part One here. The majority of West Contra Costa Unified School District students did not meet state standards on the California Assessment of Student Performance and Progress test last school year. Across the district, scores trailed the statewide average by 13 percentage points in math and 14 percentage points in English language arts. But not all WCCUSD schools performed the same. A Richmond Confidential analysis…
First in a two-part series examining West Contra Costa Unified School District student data After months of watching her 4-year-old daughter struggle with reading, Tomasa Espinoza knew she had to make a change. Her older daughter, who attended a charter school, was thriving. So Espinoza pulled her second child out of Washington Elementary in Richmond and enrolled her in a charter school, too. When it came time for her youngest child, her son, to go to school, she sent him…