On the early morning of Dec. 4, 2025, educators across the West Contra Costa Unified School District (WCCUSD) marched outside of their respective schools, advocating for higher salaries, smaller class sizes, and better use of substitute teachers. Following these marches starting on Dec. 4 was a week-long strike held by the WCCUSD educators. On Wednesday, Dec. 10, 2025, they reached an agreement with the school district, leading them to return to their classrooms the following day.
The agreement in WCCUSD involves an eight percent raise for all educators and specific salary increases for special education teachers, according to KQED. Additionally, the district will offer a better health care plan and has committed to creating provisions that improve the classroom environment.
As WCCUSD educators reached an agreement with their district, other districts, such as Berkeley Unified School District, are still struggling to agree on contract negotiations. Over the past months, the Berkeley Federation of Teachers (BFT), the union that advocates for BUSD teachers, has been working towards a new contract for all educators in BUSD after their old contract expired on June 30, 2025.
This new contract advocates for higher salaries and benefits for teachers. New contracts must be negotiated at least every three years, depending on the length of the contract.
Now, BUSD and BFT have entered an impasse, meaning that no agreement has been reached and both are essentially in a stalemate. Impasses often lead to a mediator being brought in by the state to work with both sides towards an agreement. A mediator was brought in for this deal in early January, 2026.
If no agreement is found through mediation, negotiations may go into fact-finding and then a possible employee strike. Fact-finding is when both sides put together presentations for a neutral third party to review. The third party then releases a non-binding report about what they think should happen, meant to encourage an agreement. Once the fact-finding stage ends, it’s legal for the union to declare a strike.
“We bargain in good faith, and we really try to get to a deal. Our negotiations team would have to decide what our next steps are, depending on what’s actually happening in that moment,” Matt Meyer, the president of BFT, said.
Current educator salaries in BUSD are lower than those of their surrounding districts. The average salary for BUSD teachers is around $100,000, making it fall below Fremont, Hayward, Livermore, and Dublin Unified School Districts, according to the California Department of Education’s salary information from the 2023-24 school year.
“I think that a strong contract really keeps teachers in this district, and we don’t want to leave our jobs … However, if the contract isn’t sustainable for teachers, then teachers will seek employment in other districts,” Bethany Lourie, a science teacher at Ruth Acty Elementary and a member of the negotiations team, said.
“I think that teachers’ working conditions and wages should be a priority in Berkeley, and I don’t think it should be accepted that BUSD teachers work for lower wages than in nearby districts,” Linnea Kalar, a junior at BHS, said.
Negotiations began in April. “We had 17 sessions, each one’s about an hour and a half. We weren’t even getting responses at all on many of the items, and so that wasn’t working,” Meyer said.
In an update on Dec. 2, 2025, from Superintendent Enikia Ford Morthel on the Berkeley Public Schools website, she wrote that agreements had been reached on 13 of the 24 items on the table, proposed by both sides. Items that both sides agreed on included preschool class sizes, better compensation for substitutes, and elementary school report card due dates.
The next step to reaching an agreement is mediation. Everything after that depends on whether an agreements are made with the mediator.
“We don’t negotiate because of what would happen in West Contra Costa. Every district has its own financial situation and priorities, and are coming from different places. But, much like teachers in West Contra Costa, our salaries are below average or far below average compared to the rest of the county,” Meyer said. One of the main priorities for BFT is achieving higher salaries for teachers.
On Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2026, members of BFT gathered outside of the BHS front office in a demonstration, holding signs and distributing flyers to inform students about the status of negotiations. In flyers, BFT wrote that there will be opportunities to come to an agreement before a strike authorization vote is taken if “the District is willing to come to the table with serious proposals.” However, if impasse procedures don’t result in an “acceptable agreement,” the flyer writes, union members will continue to advocate for their rights, through mediation first, and later, potentially a strike.