The O.C. Register and the L.A. Times did a poor job covering the recent firing of hundreds of instructional aides by the Santa Ana Unified School District. Now the O.C. Weekly has done a great job of recapping the issue, providing coverage of a recent protest by the laid off workers and thorough analysis of the implication of the firings.
Here are a few excerpts from the OC Weekly’s article:
“They tried to be slick,” Palacio says of district officials. “It’s insulting, from a board point of view, when staff give you deliberately one-sided information. The report doesn’t tell you how many positions were collapsed into one, the fiscal impact this will have or about the subsequent laying off of people. It doesn’t tell you that they will go from full-time to part-time salaries, that there are no health benefits and that there are less hours. It doesn’t tell you that if a person takes the job, they will lose their retirement. All of that had to be in there. How can I make an informed choice if it’s not?”
The vote on the job descriptions was pulled from the June 24 meeting after some internal protest and will be formally voted on at the July 8 meeting. The county’s largest district, with 54,000 students, faces nearly $29 million in cuts that, it says, are due to declining enrollment and the state’s fiscal crisis. The district included $29.5 million in cuts to balance its $487 million budget; the creation of the new part-time jobs passed 3-1, with Palacio as the lone dissenter.
The union representing classified employees combed through the list of job duties to discover the reshuffling of duties.
In the case of the new, part-time “school site technician” position, for example, tasks include managing student-enrollment records, monitoring class size, administering medication to kids, taking blood-sugar-level readings, preparing truancy reports and keeping attendance records—tasks currently handled by full-time school nurses, receptionists and registrars.
“My job has been renamed,” says Monica Bustamante, a data technician at Saddleback High School and 20-year district employee. Her job duties, which include managing records, transcripts and report cards, now fall under the site-technician job. “They’ve made [the description] so general it even says you have to help a sick kid,” she says. “How do they expect us to do all this in 3.75 hours? A lot of us are looking for other jobs because we need our health benefits.”
However, Palacio, Strike and other employees say they believe the number of classified employees who will lose their jobs may be higher once the final state budget is approved in July and the district revises it one more time.
The union has estimated the number could then reach into the 600 or 700 range, which would be debilitating to schools, students and teachers, says Palacio. “This is about fairness, about respecting our employees. Some people have been here for 20 years. These are the employees who are taxpayers, who are parents in the district, who live here. The way you show them respect is by giving them a good salary and good benefits.”
Be sure to read the rest of the OC Weekly’s article. It is too bad the newspapers in town regularly avoid doing their job when it comes to coverage of the corrupt and inept SAUSD administration.
A CALL TO ACTION
Don’t Let the SAUSD Board Members Eliminate Much Needed Services to Your Children at your K – 12 School Sites.
What: The SAUSD School Board is proposing reducing work hours of much needed classified employees at the school sites. The targeted jobs are: classroom assistants, secretarial staff, health clerks, custodians, securities, library clerks, attendance and computer techs among others.
When: Tuesday, July 8th
Where: SAUSD District Board Room,
1601 E. Chestnut Street, Santa Ana, CA 92701
Time: 4 p.m. is the rally and 6 p.m. is the Board Meeting.
Who’s Affected: Your Children!
These are the Board Members that are in favor of cutting services to your students.
A. Hernandez
Rob Richardson Audrey Yamagata-Noji Rosemarie Avila
URGE THEM TO VOTE NO TO CLASSIFIED CUTS!
I am personally disgusted by this. The people that work the most directly with the students are really being shafted here. This is a result of the fact that the district knows they cannot cut the number of teachers any further because we are already dealing with 40 students in our classes. They also know they can’t cut teachers salaries again, they’ve played that card already. So now it’s these underhanded tactics which are going to rip away from our district the most talented classified employees. At the same time, I see wasted money on useless, invalid tests that the district paid outside companies to write. I am fed up and I hope teachers are prepared to stand up for the classified people. Of course, they finalized all of this after the school year was over.
¡HAY QUE TOMAR ACCION!
No Permitan que los Miembros de la Mesa Directiva Eliminen Servicios Basicos de sus Hijos Dentro de sus Escuelas.
¿Que? La Mesa Directiva del Distrito Unificado de Santa Ana esta proponiendo reducir las horas de trabajo de cientos de empleados de nuestras escuelas. Los empleos afectados serán: Asistentes de maestros, secretarias, asistentes de enfermeras, conserjes, seguridad, bibliotecarias, técnicos de asistencia y computadoras, entre otras.
¿Cuando? Martes, 8 de julio
¿Donde? Salón de la Mesa Directiva del Distrito Unificado de Santa Ana,
1601 E. Chestnut Street, Santa Ana, CA 92701
¿Hora? 4 de la tarde es la junta de solidaridad y a las 6 de la tarde es la junta de la Mesa Directiva.
¿Los Afectados? ¡Sus hijos!
¡Estos son los miembros que están a favor de reducir los servicios de sus estudiantes!
A. Hernandez
Rob Richardson Audrey Yamagata-Noji Rosemarie Avila
¡Exigeles Que Voten NO a más Recortes que afecten la Educación de sus Hijos!
Art, you should have included this part of the weekly story;
The creation of all-encompassing part-time positions is a sign that layoffs are imminent, says Margie Strike, labor representative with the California School Employees Association, which represents the affected employees. The district, she says, has violated state labor laws by not negotiating with employees before proposing to eliminate their positions.
Officials pulled a similar move late last year, she says, when they created two new part-time positions to replace full-time special-education instructional aides. The new part-time jobs resulted in the gradual layoffs of 177 full-time employees. The union filed an unfair-labor charge with the California Department of Labor against the district June 11, protesting the unusual way the layoffs were handled. The charge is still under investigation.
I wonder why CSEA took over 6 months to file an unfair labor charge for those first 177 employees. I’m sure those first 177 will be glad to know CSEA woke up when the numbers went up high enough this time to make it worth the trouble.
Mr. Lundquist…You complain in multiple languages, however, you do not provide recommendations on what the district should cut in order to reduce the budget. Perhaps you are part of the problem since you offer no solutions.
Solutions? How about getting rid of the top heavy management? Or at least cutting their overpaid salaries? How about more accountability of what is purchased within the district and where that equipment/supplies goes? How about the employees who’s job titles and positions are vague? The ones who used to be principals and now sit at the district doing what?
SAUSD’s financial problems are from previous years of mismanagement, fraud, embezzlement, pilfering, theft, etc. It’s finally caught up with them, and unfortunately, the folks responsible are long gone. Yes, the state budget has had an impact, but there are many other districts that are surviving quite well.
This is sad. I taught HS exit exams in SAUSD for The Princeton Review, an outside contractor. I sensed that the teachers in SAUSD, like most teachers in CA, needed additional support. When you are teaching classrooms of 30+ at risk students, you need the help of instructional aides and assistants.
#6
I agree with your concept of cutting top level waste, but as I recall many of those people are under contracts. Fire the Superintendent and she still gets the money for the term of the contract. Not exactly a savings because a new one will have to be hired at a similar cost.
I don’t know how far down the administrative command these contracts go, but those not under contract need to be strictly reviewed and eliminated or reduced in pay.
Mijares may have started this mess but it was the boards obligation to review and monitor what was going on. Even during the last big cut Mijares took a 10% pay cut, but obviously this new bunch under Russo don’t have that kind of ethical thinking. They would rather take it out on lowly classified and teacher assistants. Nice bunch.
We can only thank the board for allowing it to happen.
#8
You’re spot on about the contracts and that’s why a state takeover might be the best “solution” at this time. It’s drastic, but it’s time for CHANGE.
All contracts, the unions and the BoE are dismantled. SAUSD is already a Year 3 Program Improvement District.
In the meantime, the best “solution” is NOT to vote for Richardson or Hernandez this November – they are part of the problem and the not the “solution.” Noji is also a big part of the problem, but she’s not up for re-election this cycle.
This district could have never become so corrupt and irresponsible if it had not had the assistance of the unions. The dues are outrageous and there are no real protections by the union.
I am extremely disappointed in Jane Russo’s lack of leadership on this. So many employees feel duped and tricked by these shady tactics.
I hear even the Borellis have retained an outside attorney. And they are near the top of the union food chain, as far as reps go.
#9
If a state takeover is the only way to get out from under this over inflated administration, then so be it. Compton Unified seems to have survived that take over and I don’t read much about problems there anymore. This has gone way beyond test scores and ‘it’s for the kids’. It isn’t for the kids anymore, its for the greedy administration.
#10
Anyone with a right mind will hire outside lawyers instead of counting on the unions. SAEA has done some positive things, but CSEA hasn’t shown me anything. Every legal case I am aware of by an employee was won using a private attorney. One of the real problems is Risk Management. They lose about every case they fight, and they fight them all to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars in lawyer fees.
SAEA had no business peddling the passage of Measure G and imposing an additional tax on the property owners of SAUSD.
The rewarding of a plum district assignment to a middle school principal for coercing teachers to phone bank for Yes on Measure G is unethical and corrupt. Hey, but that’s the SAUSD way.
Reticent
Uncertain
Sedentary
Slacker
Oligarch
#12
What middle school are you talking about? Please don’t tell me Willard. That would just be the loser/promotion scam that has been going on for years.
While I definitely believe that the district’s promotion of Measure G went beyond ethical limits (they spent money creating posters promoting the Measure and posted them at the school sites and left them up during voting hours), I don’t believe Dawn Miller was promoted for any other reason than her track record as a competent administrator.