Adair

In order to reduce salary stagnation among mid- to upper-level teachers and stay competitive with other area school districts, the Stockton Unified School District and the Stockton Teachers Association (STA) entered into a collective bargaining agreement for a new, “compressed” salary schedule, allowing teachers to obtain merit increases in salary more quickly.

After the school district implemented the agreement by reassigning certain teachers to “step” levels that did not correspond with their years of experience, certain individual senior teachers and the STA (collectively, the Teachers) filed a petition for writ of mandate against the Stockton Unified School District, its governing board and superintendent (collectively, the District), claiming that the District’s actions violated Education Code section 45028, which requires that teacher salaries “shall be classified on the salary schedule on the basis of uniform allowance for years of training and years of experience.” (§ 45028, subd. (a).)

The trial court agreed with the Teachers that the District’s formulation of the compressed schedule constituted a uniformity violation. The court also ruled that no statutory…