Judge Rules SCUSD Broke Law by Suing Teachers, Ordered to Pay SCTA Attorney Fees

Judge Katherine Nyman of the California Public Employment Relations Board issued a ruling today (which you can view here) finding that the Sacramento City Unified School District broke the law when it sued teachers to try to stop them from enforcing the collective bargaining agreement brokered by Mayor Darrell Steinberg that significantly improved the teachers’ salary schedule.

In addition to finding that SCUSD broke the law, Judge Nyman ordered the District to pay SCTA’s attorney fees for the cost of defending teachers against the District’s frivolous lawsuit.

The decision also takes the District to task for failing to provide information to SCTA in a timely and legal way.

The decision is the latest legal setback for the District, including a stinging multi-million dollar arbitration loss on implementing the agreed-upon salary schedule the frivolous lawsuit had attempted to prevent.

“That the PERB Administrative Law Judge ruled so decisively in favor of teachers should convince elected school board members that they need to provide greater oversight to district administrators and the outside attorneys who repeatedly and unsuccessfully try to subvert the law ,” said David Fisher, the president of SCTA. “We hope that her decision including awarding our attorney fees acts as a deterrent to continued unlawful behavior by Sac City Unified. ”