If people are still sitting on the fence, trying to decide which side to take in what has become a pitched battle over the future of Sacramento High School, here's something they should know: The Sacramento City Teachers Association, which has been fighting the city school district's effort to turn the troubled campus into a promising new charter school, has made it clear just how, and how much, it wants to run Sac High if it succeeds in forcing the district to reopen it as a traditional school.

And no, SCTA's operating instinct isn't about what's best for students.

The teachers union won the first round of this battle when a judge ruled that a charter petition filed in late spring was invalid on technical grounds. The charter sponsor, a nonprofit group known as St. HOPE Corp., has submitted a new petition that attempts to address the judge's concerns. The school board has approved that petition and, tonight, will likely cast final votes to allow St. HOPE to establish the charter school on the Sac High campus.

SCTA, with help and guidance from its parent union, the California Teachers Association, has vowed to file suit against this second petition. And on the chance it succeeds in making the district open a traditional school in September, it has tried to control just what kind of school it will be: largely the same school that had failed too many students for too many years.

SCTA has filed grievances seeking rights of return for its members who used to teach at Sac High. And it has filed a grievance to stop the district, which has said it would use a St. HOPE-style "block schedule" (longer class periods allowing more intensive study), from implementing that reform if the district is still running the school in September.

It's time for the teachers union to put selfish interests aside in favor of students' interests. There is as much, if not more, community support for what St. HOPE is trying to do now than there ever was. That's evidenced by $5 million in private donations -- a figure that continues to grow, even despite the uncertainty clouding the school's future.

By standing so staunchly in the path of reform at Sac High, SCTA and CTA have pitted themselves against students, parents and a community that is demanding better for its children. That, simply, is a dishonorable place to be.