Following ‘Soft Strike,’ Santa Barbara Teachers Begin New Course of Action

On Tuesday, January 16, the Santa Barbara Teachers Association (SBTA) ended its “soft strike,” and began its next phase of action: walking in and out of school together. Later that day, frustrated teachers also walked into the district office to address the board directly.

In this time of transition, the Independent sat down with union president Hozby Galindo to learn more about the new action, his background in teaching, and updates in negotiations between SBTA and the Santa Barbara Unified School District (SBUSD) as teachers push for better pay and benefits.

In-N-Out

“Today’s the last day of work to contract,” Galindo said Tuesday morning, referring to teachers closing their doors and ceasing all unpaid, extracurricular activities, which prompted multiple student protests last month in support of the teachers union. Another walkout organized by Goleta Valley Junior High is reportedly being staged this Friday.

“This week, at all school sites, teachers are going to be doing a walk-in, walk-out,” Galindo continued. That means they’ll gather before their contractual start time and walk into the school together, as a show of solidarity. At the end of the day, they’ll walk out and stand in front of the school, passing out flyers to parents as they arrive to pick up their kids. 

Later that Tuesday, Galindo joined the teachers at La Cumbre Junior High in their walkout. The goal is to raise awareness around the ongoing negotiations.

Before he was union president, Galindo worked at La Cumbre for nearly 20 years as a math teacher. He greeted students, parents, and colleagues with cheery familiarity as he passed out handfuls of fliers.

“Do I ever miss teaching!” he exclaimed during Tuesday morning’s interview. “I’ve had a lot of students come through the door and say they either have challenges with math or they just don’t like it, but we can change that perspective for them. And that is a good feeling.”

Rising in the Ranks

Galindo got his start in Santa Barbara as a student at UCSB. But it was during his first winter break in 1996, visiting his hometown in Salinas, that he realized he wanted to go into teaching. He took a trip to his old high school, intending to just use the track.  

“But when I was leaving, lo and behold, this one teacher was walking out of the main building — my 11th-grade English teacher,” he shared. 

“I told him, ‘I don’t feel that you guys prepared us for the challenges of university,’” Galindo continued, “and his response to that was, ‘Well, had we challenged you, none of you would be at a four-year university.’”

That moment, he concluded, made him “realize that we need educators who are going to challenge students, and do their best to help them reach their full potential.” 

Galindo’s first teaching job was in Fresno, but he came back to Santa Barbara as soon as he could. Over the last two decades, Galindo has also raised all four of his children in the SBUSD school system. 

Getting started in the district, though, was “very stressful,” he explained. He received a pink slip every spring because his job was not guaranteed for the following year. 

“It took about five to seven years to get out of the bottom of the hierarchy and be able to rise in the ranks,” he said, “so I would stop receiving pink-slip notices.”

In the six years since he joined the union’s bargaining team, he’s noticed some changes in the district, including in its administration, its spending, and its communication with teachers. 

“In services and operating expenses, they’re spending millions of dollars more than they have in the past,” Galindo said. “We worry when they make big adjustments like that that don’t necessarily impact the classroom.”

He was referring to the union’s budget analysis, which shows that the district’s services and operating expenses increased by about $6 million from 2021-22 to 2022-23. However, in the district’s most recent negotiations update, it said the union’s budget breakdown was evidence of “vastly different perspectives of the district’s finances.” 

‘Standing on the Proposal’

In negotiations, the two sides have stalled. On January 11, the union re-proposed its former salary offer of a 23 percent increase over two years, simultaneously rejecting the district’s proposal of 13 percent over two years. The parties seem to be heading toward an impasse. 

“We’re definitely standing on the proposal that we submitted back in our last bargaining session,” Galindo said. “The district asked for reasons or clarifications why we thought that they could afford that. And we gave it to them.”

While the district has repeatedly emphasized that it wishes to remain “fiscally solvent” and has highlighted the multimillion-dollar costs of each side’s proposals, the union has accused it of “putting money in pockets [in the budget], saying they don’t have it.”

“Our stance has always been that the district is having a difficult time retaining and attracting teachers,” Galindo said. “Over the last two years, we’ve lost 200 educators who have gone to neighboring districts, or sometimes elsewhere, looking for a better salary, or a better lifestyle for themselves.”

Galindo said that years of “institutional knowledge” leave with those teachers when they walk out the door. He used himself as an example. 

“I was teaching at La Cumbre for 19 years, so I was starting to see the second generation of a family come to my classroom,” he explained. “Those relationships are so important when you’re going to make a difference in a student’s life. Allowing people to leave because they don’t have enough to afford whatever it takes to live in this city is detrimental to students.” 

Airing Grievances

Many teachers have expressed disappointment that they are not further along in negotiations with the district. Once again, frustrated teachers and students made an appearance at the most recent school board meeting on January 16.  

The motto of the night seemed to be that the SBTA is the “strongest they’ve ever been.” Most speakers began by welcoming the board’s newest member, Dr. Sunita Beall, before questioning the district’s budget, detailing a loss of faith in district leadership, or asking for help with funding programs and retaining teachers. 

“I’ve watched many of my teachers become disheartened…. The feeling of isolation is inescapable when you’re stuck in a building full of people and not one has their door open for you,” said freshman student Melanie Snyder. “This will not end.… We [students] will do worse than walk out; we won’t walk in in the first place.”

One teacher called the district’s leadership “meme leadership,” most likely referring to the somewhat incendiary memes posted on Instagram accounts criticizing the district’s administration. 

[Click to enlarge] The SBTA brought their photo petition, covered in the faces of more than 600 teachers, to Tuesday’s board meeting (left). Outreach materials, such as signs, pins, and banners, were strewn about the overflow room at the District Office on Tuesday (right). | Credit: Callie Fausey

Another frequently raised point was the district’s miscalculation on the CEA form that details whether or not the district met the minimum spending requirement on classroom salaries. Since the miscalculation came to light, it’s been fodder for those controversial meme pages on Instagram.

Due to an honest clerical error — putting a zero in one column of the form that was supposed to remain blank, which overrode the entire formula — the calculation for the last school year was off by $3.5 million. On Tuesday night, the board had to approve the corrected waiver application for exemption from the classroom spending requirement. 

When she presented the corrected form to the board, Kim Hernandez, assistant superintendent of business services, called it a “bummer to have to bring something back because of a mistake.” 

While most boardmembers did not comment, Vice Chair Gabe Escobedo said, “In looking at the form, it’s easy to understand why someone would make a mistake.”

An exasperated Hernandez — who, earlier that night, had to listen to multiple speakers imply she should be fired over the error or that the district doesn’t understand its own budget — emphasized that they fell under the requirement amid a “global pandemic,” when they received a lot of funding for out-of-classroom expenses, namely mental-health services for students. 

“It was a mistake. I’m owning it. I’m being very clear about it,” she said about the error. “And I hope not to have to bring it back again, but if I do, I will.”

In response, Galindo decided to comment at the last minute. “There has to be fidelity with this budget,” he told the board. “I was not reassured by the words that were just shared right now.”

Tensions have risen among teachers and students as salary negotiations continue, and signs supporting SBTA have popped up in shop windows and lawns around the city. At the La Cumbre walkout, the school’s union reps described the displays of support as reassuring. 

“Families are starting to realize the gravity of the situation, and how all of this affects students,” said Shannon Curtis, teacher librarian at La Cumbre. “Our collective action affects students. But we’re losing great teachers, and that affects students, too.”