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Board pulls proposed $1.85M attendance-program contract after union concerns
Summary
The Rialto Unified board postponed a three-year, up-to-$1.85 million contract with vendor Knowledge after classified-employee and teacher-union representatives said duties could overlap with bargaining-unit work and asked for a labor impact review; the board asked staff to return with answers and union input.
The Rialto Unified School District board on June 10 voted to pull a proposed three-year contract with Knowledge, a private attendance-to-achievement vendor, after employee groups raised concerns about job impacts and asked for more information.
Aman Raw, Knowledges CEO, presented the platform and described it as a "learn-to-earn" system that pairs short-term incentives (gift cards, local corporate partnerships) and longer-term tuition-reward arrangements with participating colleges to re-engage chronically absent students. Raw told the board the company has worked with large districts and cited an average chronic-absence reduction of roughly 8% in partner districts and school-level improvements up to 21%.
Union objections and board response: Christina Costa, speaking for the California School Employees Association (CSEA) Chapter 203, asked the board to remove the Knowledge item from the agenda pending a thorough review of how duties assigned to the program would interact with classified bargaining-unit work. "Before any action is taken... its important to determine whether this proposal would result in the transfer, reassignment, duplication or elimination of duties that are currently part of classified employees positions," Costa said. The Rialto Education Association also requested more time and highlighted the need to bargain over work that might change.
Board action and follow-up: After extended questioning from trustees about evidence, data, privacy/compliance and funding, the board voted unanimously to pull the item and asked staff to return at a future meeting with answers to board questions and to consult with the unions. The board asked for details including whether ELOP or community-school grant funds could legitimately pay for parts of the program, what the contracts per-year scope and caps are, whether the vendors data integrations meet district and state privacy standards, and how the district would measure and attribute attendance gains to the platform.
What was proposed: The agenda listed a three-year agreement with Knowledge to "develop a comprehensive attendance-to-achievement framework" with a total cost not to exceed $1.85 million (Year 1 $295,000; Year 2 $395,000; Year 3 $1,150,000 according to the agenda language). Board members repeatedly asked staff and the vendor for clearer evidence of impact in districts with similar scale and for assurances about how incentives would be capped, distributed and reconciled with existing site-level attendance/recovery programs.
Next steps: Staff will return with written responses to board questions and will consult with CSEA and REA on labor and bargaining implications before the item can be brought back for board consideration.
