Vallejo school board finalizes layoffs as union accuses district of continued legal violations

VALLEJO – The Vallejo City Unified School District Board of Education voted to finalize layoffs for more than 50 staff members on Wednesday while a union accused the district of breaking the law throughout the process, setting up legal challenges to the layoffs.

Among the new allegations, the California School Employees Association has accused the district of violating the Brown Act, the state’s open meeting law, by taking a secret vote to reject a memorandum with the union in March. CSEA represents roughly 600 classified staffers who tend to be the lowest paid in the district, such as food service, office and maintenance workers.

The board’s decision to reject the memorandum relates to allegations the union has made in recent months that the school district violated a law forbidding it from transferring union work to third parties, contractors, or managers without first bargaining with the union.

The union has been fighting the district over the pending layoffs, and had pushed back against the district’s decision to close three schools next school year. 

The school board’s vote from December to close the schools was also the subject of a Brown Act complaint from CSEA after the Vallejo Sun discovered text messages that appeared to show the district discussed the decision during a closed session meeting before taking a public vote. The district denied that it broke the law but agreed to revote publicly. 

The board reaffirmed its decision to close three schools to an outraged crowd during a meeting last month.

CSEA made its latest accusation in a letter on April 28.

District spokesperson Maral Papakhian told the Vallejo Sun in an email that the district received the letter, and is consulting with legal counsel about it. 

“VCUSD takes compliance with all applicable laws and transparency requirements seriously,”  Papakhian said. “Because this matter is currently under review, we are limited in what we can discuss publicly at this time.

CSEA Senior Labor Relations Representative Nathan Jennings told the Vallejo Sun that the district secretly voted down an agreement which sought to prevent “bosses from taking the jobs of union workers,” in accordance with the Educational Employment Relations Act. According to CSEA, it reached the tentative agreement with the district in September. 

“The issue of these district discussions behind closed doors is the most egregious aspect,” Jennings said. “We don’t trust them to follow the law based on how this went down. When we come to agreements at the bargaining table are they just going to go behind our backs and reject them secretly through the board? That’s the concern.”

In its letter, CSEA claims that during a bargaining session over proposed layoffs on March 17, Assistant Superintendent Matthew Chamberlain said that the school board rejected the agreement at a meeting on March 10.

CSEA has accused the board of making its decision “unlawfully in closed session,” because the matter was not put on the agenda nor discussed during the public meeting.

David Loy, legal director of the First Amendment Coalition and an expert on the Brown Act, told the Vallejo Sun that if the board voted in a closed session meeting on an agreement with a union, “it would be a significant Brown Act problem.”

Closed session meetings are common in Vallejo and other local agencies to discuss private issues such as legal matters protected by attorney-client privilege. But, according to Loy, the decision to ratify or reject an agreement with a union is not a private matter, and must be discussed in public.

Loy also said that, if the school board had indeed rejected the agreement in closed session, its failure to report taking this action would also violate the Brown Act. The act requires local agencies to announce any matter they will discuss in closed session on an agenda, and, following closed session meetings, report back to the public any action taken. But the board’s alleged discussion and decision on the agreement doesn’t appear on the March 10 agenda, and its alleged decision to reject the agreement wasn’t announced publicly.

“Even if they had been allowed to go into closed session to discuss this matter, they would have had to list the item on the agenda and they would have had to do some reporting out on their action,” Loy said. “So that’s a potential Brown Act problem as well.”

CSEA’s recent accusatory missive is called a cure and correct letter. Such letters must be sent within 90 days of an alleged Brown Act violation and a local agency has 30 days to respond, either agreeing to correct the matter by voiding its decision and revoting in public or refuting the accusation.

The district has until May 28 to respond to CSEA’s letter. If the district doesn’t respond, or denies the accusation, CSEA will then have 15 days to take the matter to court.

“If you fail to cure and correct as demanded,” the letter reads, “such inaction may leave the union with no recourse but to seek a judicial invalidation of the challenged action and future audio recording of closed sessions.”

The union not only objected to the board’s alleged Brown Act violation, but claims the district violated the education code by “delaying ratification” of its agreement “without justification.”

CSEA has challenged the action with the state Public Employees Relation Board, or PERB, which oversees labor relations for California public employees. The union alleges the district failed to bargain in good faith when it  “undermined ratification” of the agreement.

Jennings, who has worked with CSEA since 2012 and has come to hundreds of agreements with school districts, said he has never seen a board reject an agreement after a district and CSEA have come to consensus. He also said that he hasn’t seen a school board wait to ratify an agreement for months, as labor agreements are generally quickly brought before school boards. 

“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Jennings said. “We believe the district deliberately torpedoed our September agreement.”

Meanwhile, the board has proceeded with the planned layoffs. The district approved a resolution to eliminate roughly130 full-time CSEA positions in February. 

The school board unanimously voted to finalize its decision to lay off CSEA members on Wednesday, with student trustees Beroj Arbab and Zanyah DeLeon opposed. The student trustee votes are symbolic and hold no formal power.

The 130 full time positions represent more than 130 staffers, as many CSEA members work part time. But the district has also created new positions, transferring or demoting some CSEA members into them. In response to an inquiry regarding how many total CSEA members were affected by the current resolution, Papakhian sent a chart showing 51 CSEA members would be laid off and 39 would be demoted. Additionally, 36 people are listed as transferring jobs and 17 retired or resigned. 

Jennings said many of these demotions, transfers, and decisions to retire or resign occurred under pressure from the district. In total, the district also said it rescinded 30 of the planned layoffs it had originally planned in February. 

CSEA members have often spoken out against the layoffs in recent months in meetings, and held rallies opposing them in February and March. 

On Wednesday, four CSEA members and community members again spoke out against the layoffs before the board approved them.

Shortly before the board voted on the layoffs, Vallejo CSEA chapter Vice President Nicole Arenal, an academic support provider who is slated to be laid off, said that the board members’ vote would not be forgotten.

“If this board approves these layoffs, this vote will follow you,” Arenal said. “It will follow you when families call schools and no one has time to answer. It will follow you when students lose trusted adults. It will follow you when safety concerns grow. It will follow you when the remaining staff are overwhelmed and tasked with doing the impossible.”

Arenal also delivered a letter during the meeting addressed to Superintendent Rubén Aurelio from parents, community members, and staff expressing a vote of no confidence in Chamberlain, the main negotiator during bargaining sessions with CSEA. The letter, which Arenal said was signed by over 1,000 people, blamed Chamberlain for deteriorating trust between the district and labor, and criticized his competence and his reliance on expensive outside legal counsel.

“We are calling on the district to take immediate and decisive actions to address these concerns,” Arenal said, “up to and including the removal of Matthew Chamberlain from his position.”

Earlier in the day, the district issued a press release recognizing Chamberlain for receiving the Nels Nelson Award from the Association of California School Administrators Region 6 on April 22. The press release stated that Chamberlain has launched “several impactful initiatives” including a mentorship program for new administrators, and new professional development workshops “focused on equity and inclusion.”

Jennings said that although the layoffs have been approved, the union plans to fight to get workers back their jobs by disputing them through PERB, which has the power to force agencies to reinstate laid off workers if layoffs occur in violation of labor law.

“It’s absolutely not over,” Jennings said. “We’re doing everything we can for our workers and the Vallejo community.”

Editor's note: This story has been updated to correct the spelling of Nicole Arenal.