OGSD Negotiations Update
2024/2025 School Year - May 2025, Volume 4
We are making progress in our negotiations currently with both Oak Grove Educators Association (OGEA), which represents teachers and certificated staff and California School Employees Association (CSEA), which represents Secretaries, Instructional Assistants (IAs), and other classified staff.
OGEA: The district met at the table with OGEA on May 6, 2025 and May 13, 2025. The district and OGEA collaborated on the following four articles during the May 6 and 13 sessions:
- Article 12: Compensation. The last district proposal included expansion of the salary schedule to include a column recognizing BA+75 units and included a one-time, off-schedule salary schedule payment for the 2025-26 school year.
- Article 15: Health and Welfare Benefits. The district has entered into 2 MOUs with OGEA during the 2022-2025 closed contract period to aid in rising health care costs post pandemic. Contributions from the District reflected in these MOUs continue to be the equivalent of about 1.75% of ongoing salary for OGEA. There is ongoing discussion around this article.
- Article 14 Hours of Employment. Conversation at the table included topics around preparation periods for teachers as well as clarification around scheduling of IEP, 504 and SST meetings. Additionally, ongoing discussion continues around the topic of mandated training requirements.
- Article 15 Class Size: The District and OGEA continue to discuss class size at intermediate schools, including individual class caseloads. There is continued discussion around pupil placement funds (PPF), combination classes and mainstreaming of students with special education IEPs. Staffing ratios and proposals around PPF for teachers in non-categorical classrooms has also been a topic of discussion. The District and OGEA share an interest in memorializing historical memorandum of understandings (MOUs) around PPF for Resource Specialists and Speech and Language Pathologists in regards to caseloads.
- Additionally, the last district proposal included stipend increases for several roles including after school sports, intermediate school athletic directions, bilingual teachers, and speech and language pathologists supervising clinical fellows.
- The next negotiations session with OGEA will be on June 4, 2025.
CSEA: The district met at the table with CSEA on May 20th and May 27th.
On May 20th, OGEA and CSEA passed counter proposals on Article 7: Pay and Allowances and Article 8 Health and Welfare Benefits. Counter proposals between the District and CSEA continued for Article 7 and 8 on May 27th.
A tentative agreement was reached on May 20th on Article 6: Hours of Work and Overtime. The District expanded language so that Special Day Classes with a number of students to fourteen or more will have an increase of support time from class instructional assistants.
The next negotiations session with CSEA will be on June 2, 2025.
The Fund 40 source is where money from facility mitigation fees, property sales, and other capital-related revenues is kept. The majority of these funds are restricted or for one-time use. The resources from the sale of the Calero site and the Miner site are kept in Fund 40. Fund 40 is not an ongoing source of income/revenue. Please click HERE for additional details of the Fund 40.
The District continues to work in good faith through ongoing discussions with our bargaining unit at the table in an attempt to address the concerns raised about recruiting and retaining teachers.
The challenge is that while we will receive a COLA, now estimated to be 2.3%, it amounts to less than $600,000 in new, ongoing money for OGSD. Currently, a 1% raise for all employees is about $1,000,000.
While we have reserves to help us through this time of deficit spending, most of those have restrictions. Additionally, one-time funds won’t sustain ongoing increases for expenditures, so we must be careful not to create a bigger problem in a few years.
Fund 1
At the end of 2023/24, Fund 1 had about 45 million dollars.
Just over $27 million were restricted for specific purposes. We are working to optimize those funds to cover deficits.
Almost $18 million of funds were unrestricted. Roughly $5 million are required as baseline reserves. Most of the remainder will be used to offset deficits for this fiscal year.
Fund 40
Calero is about $17 million. While it is unrestricted, it is currently in the budget to offset deficits and will be depleted on our current trajectory.
Miner is subject to use for one-time expenditures. There are restrictions based on the plan submitted to the State Allocation Board. It must be used for retirement incentives, the textbook adoption (Math was paid for with these funds), Technology, vehicles, and green investments (maintaining our Solar).
Glider is still in escrow. The funds we expect to receive from the sale will have similar restrictions to those for Miner.
Other resources in Fund 40 are mostly restricted to capital improvements.
Health Benefits rates have been increasing rapidly, and to assist with those steep increases, the District added contributions in the last two years. Despite the fact that this was within a 3-year closed contract period, the District helped employees in good faith to support unexpected, rising costs. These amount to almost 1.75% of salary for OGEA.
The interests of the Board are to provide good compensation options to attract and retain more quality of staff at Oak Grove. However, we must also be sure we can sustain those actions into the future so we do not face some of the fiscal crisis other districts in the state and county are dealing with now.
Our goal is to work with our bargaining partners to continue to make working in Oak Grove feasible in a county like Santa Clara.
Looking ahead, as the district continues to navigate a shifting fiscal landscape, including declining enrollment and federal funding uncertainties, the District Office will undergo strategic reorganization in response to recent retirements and promotions within management.
In Human Resources, the team will move from three Confidential employees to two: Debi Rivas-Klem and Yolanda Hernandez. Other business-related duties will also be restructured to Mariane Pham in Business Services. The third HR Confidential role will not be filled.
In Educational Services, the Coordinator position previously held by Julie Silva will also not be filled. Instead, the work will be restructured among existing managers.
The role of Principal on Special Assignment, which will be vacant after Sheetal Singh’s transition to Director of Special Education, will not be posted at this time. The District will use this opportunity to evaluate and potentially restructure the support this position provides.
Additionally, we will sunset resident substitute positions at our schools for the coming year. This support was greatly needed during the time of transition back from COVID as staff absences were affected by subsequent waves of COVID-related illness. Funding of resident substitutes was supported by one-time funds from the state to districts to aid in a return to in-person instruction. As these one-time funds are no longer available, support of resident substitute positions will end in the coming school year.
While our district remains committed to supporting our certificated staff, several key shifts have impacted the percentage of the total budget allocated to teacher salaries. These include an increase in classified staffing due to additional TK instructional aides and one-to-one aides for students with special needs, and the expansion of state-mandated after-school programs under the Expanded Learning Opportunities Program (Think Together, Right at School, Boys & Girls Club). Additionally, the district has invested approximately $3 million in contracted staff—primarily for special education roles—a figure expected to decrease by two-thirds in the 2025–26 school year. Rising health and welfare benefit costs have also contributed to the overall budget distribution.