Less than a week into her new role on a statewide TK-12 healthcare cost working group, Modesto City Schools Superintendent Vanessa Buitrago has proposed that the state investigate creating a single insurance pool for all California educators.
In a letter to local education and policy leaders, Buitrago wrote that rising healthcare costs are unsustainable for districts individually, and that it is time for “serious discussion in California about whether the current fragmented district-by-district healthcare benefits system can be viable for public education systems over time,” according to The Modesto Bee.
Buitrago joined State Superintendent for Public Education Tony Thurmond’s TK-12 healthcare cost work group on May 27. In the letter to Cal Ed Partners, the California Association of Suburban School Districts and California Office to Reform Education she wrote that, for some teachers, monthly medical costs are higher than mortgage payments…