Walkout over California return-to-office order: 'Going to lose a lot of quality staff'

William Melhado, The Sacramento Bee on Mar 11, 2025

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SACRAMENTO, Calif. — For 15 minutes — the length of a union-contracted break — employees of California’s Department of Education stood outside the agency’s headquarters Tuesday morning, voicing their frustration over the state superintendent’s decision to follow Gov. Gavin Newsom’s return-to-office order.

“It’s been a real win for us,” Ian Cambridge, a consultant with CDE, said of telework.

As an elected constitutional officer, State Superintendent Tony Thurmond has the authority to establish hybrid working conditions independent of the governor. Cambridge and his colleagues hope to convince Thurmond to change course on telework and maintain the current two days in-office policy.

Speaking outside the Education Department’s headquarters Tuesday, Cambridge said his team has helped allocate billions of dollars to districts across the state without issues, which demonstrates the efficacy of telework.

“The work we do is on spreadsheets,” said Cambridge, who has eight years of service with the state.

In an interview on Tuesday, Thurmond said he decided to follow the governor’s four-day order because California teachers and school staff are working with students in person and the Education Department should be, too.

“Our schools are in person already five days a week and we are in service to schools,” Thurmond said. “We’re going to do our best to be in alignment with them.”

The Education Department also runs three schools for students with disabilities across the state. Thurmond noted the hundreds of CDE employees in those schools have been working in person.

He said he recognized that many CDE employees have concerns about parking, the costs associated with commuting and impacts on caring for children.

“We want to take into consideration that there are some employees who are going to have hardships,” Thurmond said. “There will be challenges to be worked through.”

Even though the superintendent intends to follow Newsom’s order, he didn’t set a hard deadline to implement the policy. Thurmond said the agency may be willing to make exceptions based on employees’ circumstances. He noted the department is soliciting information from workers about individual hardships the change will impose.

“We’re going to lose a lot of quality staff, how are we going to replace them?” Kyla Asbell, an analyst with the department, said Tuesday outside the CDE building.

Natalie Boyer, also a CDE analyst, voiced a common frustration held by many public employees. She believes state leaders called public servants back to the office, in part, to revitalize downtown Sacramento by increasing foot traffic for businesses and parking revenues for the city.

Even with the return of state employees to downtown offices twice a week, businesses in Sacramento are struggling to keep up with operating costs. Boyer said spending by state workers shouldn’t be used to fill in those gaps.

A number of CDE employees were surprised to receive an email from Thurmond last Wednesday, announcing the agency would be following the four-day order. They said that Thurmond’s team told CDE employees that the current policy, three days of remote work, would be in effect until his term ended in 2027.

When asked if his team promised department employees there would be no change to telework policies, Thurmond said he did not recall saying so. He doubted that he would make such a definitive statement.

“If there’s any confusion, let me clarify with folks now that we were focused on the two days starting last July, and the circumstances have changed,” Thurmond said “We’ve been asked to move four days and that is our new assignment.”

CDE employees attributed Thurmond’s decision to follow Newsom’s order as politically motivated — the superintendent is running for governor in 2026. CDE employees said this decision could benefit him when running for statewide office.

Thurmond rejected that assertion Tuesday.

“How would making a few thousand people angry at you help you in the campaign?” Thurmond asked.

Tuesday’s demonstration served as a precursor to an informational picket scheduled for Wednesday from 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. outside the California Department of Human Resources. Organized by SEIU Local 1000 and several other public sector unions, the labor groups are hosting similar events in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Fresno, Santa Ana and San Diego.

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