Modesto teachers are preparing to vote on a possible strike after a third mediation session with Modesto City Schools ended without a deal, a move the Modesto Teachers Association says could lead to the first teacher strike in the district in nearly five decades. The union has scheduled its official strike vote for Nov. 5, following more than a year of negotiations over pay, healthcare and special-education support.
The breakdown came after the third and final mediation session ended Friday without an agreement, according to The Modesto Bee. That failure followed an impasse declared after the two sides' July 31 negotiations meeting, which sent the dispute into mediation in the first place, according to Modesto City Schools. As reported by CBS Sacramento, the Modesto Teachers Association represents the district's teachers and says members have now held three mediation sessions without reaching a deal over the course of more than a year of bargaining.
With mediation exhausted, the matter moves to fact-finding, though the union says a preauthorization strike vote already landed in the 90th percentile. The MTA says it has been released to fact-finding, and its official vote is scheduled for Nov. 5, per the Bee's reporting. Salary increases, health benefits and special-education provisions remain the sticking points, according to the district's own FAQ page.
What's Actually on the Table
The numbers themselves are murky and have shifted during negotiations. Modesto City Schools' own comparison document describes its proposal as a permanent 2.5% salary increase backdated to July 1, 2025, plus another permanent 2.5% increase beginning July 1, 2026 — a figure that the district says has grown since what was on the table in August. A later account in the same Bee report instead described the district's updated offer as a 3% raise retroactive to July 1, 2025, with an additional 3% increase for the 2026-27 school year, suggesting the proposal evolved further as talks continued.
The MTA's counterproposal, per the district's own materials, calls for a permanent 3% increase backdated to July 1, 2025 and a 4.5% increase beginning July 1, 2026 — larger than either district figure. The district's offer also reportedly includes a one-time payment equal to 2% of an employee's base salary for 2026-27, and the district has said its latest offer would double its contribution toward family healthcare coverage by 2027, with contributions reaching more than $27,000 that year.
Teachers say that promise doesn't match their current reality. MTA President Jennifer McGrath told the Bee that teachers currently pay between $1,211 and $2,415 a month for coverage of a single family member, and between $1,889 and $3,454 monthly for full family coverage. McGrath also said this marks teachers' third year without a salary increase, and that the union has never put the district in financial peril.
Staffing Gaps and Classroom Demands
Beyond pay, the union is pushing for smaller class sizes and more special-education support, according to CBS Sacramento. McGrath pointed to a stark staffing gap to make her case: Modesto currently has 17 vacancies for speech and language pathologists, she said, while neighboring Ceres has none. McGrath said the union is not being unreasonable, and that teachers feel they must apply pressure to prompt the district to move.
Modesto City Schools, for its part, says it wants an agreement with teachers without disrupting students, and the district's FAQ page lists the unresolved salary, healthcare and special-education issues alongside its own proposal to pilot alternative elementary school schedules at up to two schools during the 2026-27 school year. McGrath said teachers simply want to return to the classroom and receive fair compensation without continually battling the district.
A Statewide Healthcare Squeeze
The clash in Modesto is part of a broader financial strain hitting school districts across California. Healthcare benefit costs for California districts rose 46%, or $6,345 per teacher, between the 2004-05 and 2024-25 school years, according to KVPR. The outlet also reported that districts statewide spent an average of 8% of their per-pupil funding on health and welfare benefits in 2024-25, and that a July 2025 survey of nearly 2,000 California teachers found 69% said high out-of-pocket healthcare costs were eating into their paychecks.
The cost of those benefits has surged nearly 500% since the 2013-14 school year, far outpacing growth in school funding overall, according to EdSource. That pressure has already boiled over elsewhere in the state. Twin Rivers Unified teachers in Sacramento spent 12 days on strike in March, in part because healthcare premiums for some teachers and their families had reached $1,600 a month, per KVPR's reporting.
Other districts have reached resolutions that illustrate what's at stake in Modesto. West Contra Costa Unified teachers ended a four-day strike after winning an 8% raise over two years and the elimination of health premiums altogether, according to a separate EdSource report, which also noted at least 14 California school districts are currently at an impasse with their teachers unions. Los Angeles Unified, meanwhile, settled with teachers on 5% raises plus a $2,000 one-time stipend and a $500 bonus, as reported by CalMatters, which noted that thousands of California K-12 teachers have walked off the job or voted to strike in recent months as part of a broader statewide push for better pay and benefits.
