Dixon School District teachers and classified Workers protest low pay at last week's school board meeting in front of City Hall.

DIXON, CA (MPG) - Picket signs and chants are becoming more of a regular scene at Dixon Unified School District meetings, especially this past year. Last week, there was plenty of sign waving and chanting from the Dixon Teachers Association who got additional support from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 1021 classified workers’ chapter. Both want more pay.

“It’s frustrating. When we finished [talks last year,] they made a promise to present a salary proposal at the start of this year and they didn’t even counter till February,” said Dixon Teacher Association President Wes Besseghini. “They are in the same spot.”

Several teachers spoke to attentive Trustees citing as many as 30-plus teaching spots currently available on EdJoin, an online teaching job website, and if they don’t do something now to retain staff, the problem will get worse. The district’s proposed 5% raise is not enough, and they want 3% more.

A SEIU District field rep addresses the School Board.

“We’re tired of losing really qualified, amazing teachers to surrounding districts,” said Sheila Herd, Dixon’s teacher of the Year. “We are the lowest paid district in the surrounding area.”

Parent Julie Galindo told of her son sitting in a gym for 15 days because they had no social science credentialed teacher.

“And that was the entire eighth grade class--there was no learning at all,” she said.

Across the state, there is a credentialed teacher shortage with more than 10,000 teacher vacancies during the 2021-2022 school year according to the California Department of Education. Plus, there was a 16 percent reduction in new teacher credentials at the end of 2023, reported as the first decline in a decade.

The DTA argues that the solution for our town would be found in increasing salaries.

“We want full teaching spots because people can go to Winters, Vacaville, and Davis,” said Besseghini. “We are the lowest paid in Solano County.  The lowest paid district is still 9-percent higher and the highest is 19 percent higher. Both unions (teachers and classified,] have not agreed on anything this year. We’re hopeful that when they went into closed session, they got direction to evaluate the budget.”

“At the tables, the DTA has not agreed to salary and formally requested to go to impasse and the district has agreed to go with them. There will be a state-approved mediator to help,” reported School Board Trustee DJ Bowen. Both groups will be back at bargaining Friday.

An impasse occurs when the union and employer cannot agree despite both parties' good faith attempts to negotiate a collective bargaining agreement.

“The SEIU have all agreed with the only open article being salary.  They were there mostly for support. SEIU voted to strike last year but it was an untraditional order,” said Bowen. He was not surprised they joined in because of the timing of the situation and told of a 10-year Dixon demographic study showing fewer rates of children residing in Dixon homes. “A study last year showed one child for every five houses and that is shockingly small [number of Dixon children,]” he added.

"We just gave the superintendent a 25% raise. It's hard to swallow when they're making over $200,000 and my coworkers are making $16.22 an hour," paraeducator and SEIU 1021 President Andrew Rathjen said to the Trustees.

“There isn’t a board member up here who doesn’t believe you all deserve more,” DUSD Board President Julian Cuevas responded to the audience. “This is a nationwide issue. There is a shortage of teachers and a shortage in funding. We have literally provided what we can at this moment and based on what our current budget is.”

The educators say to revise the budget. They say the vacancies have left students learning from substitutes or under-qualified educators.