First, it was the students. Now, it’s the teachers.

More than 600 teachers, parents and members of the community marched several blocks, from the Unitarian Society of Santa Barbara to the Santa Barbara Unified School District headquarters, on Tuesday to call for better pay and benefits for teachers.

A group playing drums led the march, and a saxophonist serenaded the crowd as they marched, led by law enforcement.

“Man, it’s so beautiful to see,” said Hozby Galindo, president of the Santa Barbara Teachers Association. “It’s not just teachers. We got the community here, and I could not be more proud.”

The SBTA and the district reached an impasse in contract negotiations in January and are now headed for mediation. The first mediation session is scheduled for March.

For four months, the teachers union has taken its campaign for higher salaries and better benefits public in an attempt to pressure Superintendent Hilda Maldonado and the school district. Students at all three high schools and several junior high and elementary schools walked out of class last year to demonstrate their support for teachers.

The situation came to a head when the teachers association discovered that the district underpaid teachers by $6.7 million in 2023. That number was later revised to $3.5 million. Still, teachers say the district pays teachers below the 55% minimum required by state law.

“It’s super sad that we have to deal with this,” said Jennifer Tanner, a teacher at La Colina Junior High School. “Santa Barbara is so expensive. I feel like it is a slap in the face what the district is doing. I feel like we don’t have any support.”

She left behind a career in accounting to become a math teacher a year ago. Now, she has to work multiple jobs to make ends meet. She only stays, she said, because of her love for students.

“It has put me in a financial burden just to be able to do this,” Ramirez said. “I have two other jobs.”

Of the negotiations, Ed Zuchelli, a spokesman for the Santa Barbara Unified School District, said “a mediator has been assigned, and we are set to meet on March 5.”

“This is a tea kettle that has been burning, over-boiling for quite awhile,” said Jessie Prodromos, a teacher at La Cumbre Junior High School.

She said the district does not appreciate its teachers and that it should compensate them better.

“Everyone deserves a little bit more with the economy and the way finances are these days,” Prodromos said.

She said the district is just delaying and finding excuses to not pay teachers more.

Meanwhile, the district issued a news release a week ago saying that it had reached agreements with its classified employees on issues of sick leave, bereavement leave and medical premiums.

The teachers marched up Santa Barbara Street, turned on Victoria Street, down State Street, left on Canon Perdido and to the district headquarters on Anacapa Street.

They arrived just as the meeting formally began at 6 p.m.

“This will not be the last time that we will be marching,” Galindo said. “The engine and the fuel that drive our bargaining team is this collective solidarity that you are seeing here today, so we ask the community to keep vigilante.”