Vallejo school district agrees to save jobs, union agrees to drop litigation

VALLEJO – The Vallejo City Unified School District and its largest employee union have come to an agreement this week that will restore eliminated jobs and resolve formal complaints and litigation the union has filed against the district.

The agreement states that 23 members of the Vallejo chapter of the California School Employees Association (CSEA) who were laid off this year or last year can keep their jobs or move into similar positions. Four other members, meanwhile, will be offered promotions. Additionally, the agreement creates 15 new CSEA positions, and laid off union members will be prioritized for those positions.

In total, 42 CSEA members will likely remain employed by the district as a result of the agreement. This comes after Vallejo’s Board of Education approved a resolution on May 13 to lay off 51 union members, demote 39, and transfer jobs for 36. Those layoffs would have become official Wednesday.

As part of the agreement, the union is dropping its formal grievance, unfair labor practice charges, and a lawsuit it had filed against the district.

Vallejo’s Board of Education approved the tentative agreement during a brief meeting on Tuesday in a 4-0 vote, with Trustee Latyna Young absent.

Union members approved the agreement Wednesday. CSEA Labor Relations Representative Jeremy Arnold said that, as a policy, the union doesn’t make public vote results, but the agreement passed “overwhelmingly.”

Arnold said that the district and the union started trading proposals about saving jobs in December, but the district hadn’t been willing to bargain in good faith until recently. He called the agreement “a miracle” and said, “It’s not everyday you get to save so many jobs.”

“I think they thought the impending layoffs would motivate the union to fold,” Arnold added. “But when it became clear the union would stand by its members and their rights up until the very end, that’s when the tone changed at the table.”

In an email, Superintendent Rubén Aurelio called the agreement “an important step,” and said district leadership is pleased with it and looks forward to continuing to partner with CSEA.

“While there were difficult conversations along the way, we appreciate the time, effort, and professionalism demonstrated by everyone involved in reaching this agreement,” Aurelio said.

In April, the district accused CSEA of not bargaining, and asked the California Public Employment Relations Board to declare an impasse in its negotiations and appoint a state mediator. But the board declined the district’s request.

While most of the restored positions were tentatively cut in May, the agreement also restored five community school site coordinator positions that were cut in the spring of 2025. The union claimed in a grievance to California’s State Mediation and Reconciliation Services that the district broke education code by allowing a contractor to take over duties of these five laid off workers.

That contractor was JF University/Luv Our Youth, which was contracted for anti-bullying activities and to support after-school programming in 10 schools. But when videos surfaced of its operator, Eryck “Boomer” Bennet, making disparaging remarks about the district and boasting of how his organization was using its access to convert district students to Christianity, the district ended the contracts.

In exchange for agreeing to restore the five community school site coordinator positions, the union has dropped its grievance. The people who had previously worked in those positions will have first priority to get their jobs back. Should any of those people decide not to accept the position, other laid off CSEA employees will be next in line to take the positions, according to Arnold.

The union is also dropping six unfair labor practice charges filed with California’s Public Employee Relations Board that accused the district of refusing to bargain in good faith. One of the charges claimed the district was planning to hire non-union workers to take over the tasks formerly performed by laid-off union members. Specifically, the charges claimed that the work done by 14 academic support providers still had to be completed, but the district did not want to use union labor for the work. 

Under the new agreement, all 14 academic support providers will be given the opportunity to remain in 13 newly created district jobs. Arnold said these new workers will perform similar tasks in the new roles.

Even if all 13 academic support providers take the positions offered, the one remaining worker will be at the top of the list for another CSEA job, according to Arnold.

In addition to the academic support providers, three office workers and two maintenance workers who had been slated to be laid off will now keep their same jobs or return to similar positions.

Four more maintenance workers who had been slated to be laid off will also be promoted into a new position called advanced crafts worker. This job will include the duties of carpentry, plumbing, painting, welding and other general maintenance, and will be offered to the four most senior CSEA members who meet the minimum qualifications. According to Arnold, the new job will include new training and increased pay.

The agreement also creates 15 new CSEA positions, which will all be offered to laid off CSEA members who meet the minimum qualifications for the jobs.

As part of the agreement, CSEA is now dropping a lawsuit that accused the district and its board of violating a state transparency law. CSEA claimed in its suit that, in March, the district’s board decided to reject an agreement with the union in a private closed session meeting, and said that the act required the district and its board to decide whether to reject or accept such an agreement during a public meeting.

The district denied that it violated the Brown Act.

Arnold told the Vallejo Sun that CSEA believes the district had violated state education and transparency law and that the union would have succeeded in its grievance, unfair labor practice charges, and Brown Act lawsuit, but that the processes of formally litigating them would have taken a long time. He said it was “in the best interest of everyone” to come to the present agreement.

“VCUSD can be like the twilight zone, but we’re coming back to reality here,” Arnold said. “This is a big victory for sure.”