May 25, 2017
Contact:
Blanca Gallegos: 213-500-9594, bgallegos@seiu99.org
Terry Carter: 213-700-5617, tcarter@seiu99.org
Los Angeles, CA—As the Los Angeles Unified School District prepares its budget for the next school year, custodians, special education assistants, cafeteria workers, school bus drivers and other classified school employees gathered outside District headquarters today with songs, candlelight and prayers. These school employees, who are being recognized during California’s Classified Employees Week, called on LAUSD to improve staffing levels of vital student services and ensure fair wages and training for dedicated school support staff.
While the District has begun to restore programs and services lost during the recession, many student services are in dire need of improvement. SEIU Local 99 members currently in negotiations with LAUSD urge the District to ensure a clean, safe and supportive learning environment by:
- Restoring custodial services to neglected neighborhood schools. Between 2007 and 2014, more than 1,100 school maintenance positions were cut. Only a tiny fraction of those positions have been restored;
- Improving staffing for parent engagement programs and children with special needs;
- Increasing training opportunities to grow more teachers and other education workers from our local communities;
- Ensuring fair wages for dedicated school workers—many of them women of color and parents of LAUSD students—who deliver vital student services yet are a largely part time and seasonal work force
“SEIU Local 99 members, half of them parents and guardians of LAUSD students, are on the front line in our schools,” said SEIU Local 99 Executive Director Max Arias. “They see firsthand that our predominantly Black and Latino students are underserved because our schools are understaffed. Even as funding has been restored to our schools with the Governor’s temporary tax increases, these vital student services have been largely neglected and frozen at inexcusably low recession levels. Let’s face it: this gets in the way of student achievement.”
“I run the Parent Center at Carson High School,” said Community Representative Haydee Malacas. “I help parents with everything from how to set up an email account to dealing with domestic violence and immigration issues. But even though I work as many as 15 hours a day, I only get paid for four. In my experience as a mom and in my role at Carson, kids do better in school when they have a stable home and their parents are involved with their education—so I know I’m making a huge difference. But what a difference it would make for my own family if I was paid for more hours.”
LAUSD Custodians, Special Education Assistants, Community Representatives, Cafeteria Workers, School Bus Drivers, and other school employees, parents, clergy and community groups called upon LAUSD School Board Members, Superintendent King and other administrators to improve staffing levels, wages and training for school workers to ensure a safe and supportive learning environment for all students.
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SEIU Local 99 is a union of 35,000 education workers in K-12 schools, early education centers and homes, administrative offices, and community colleges throughout Southern California, including 30,000 cafeteria workers, teacher aides, custodians, bus drivers and others providing essential student services at LAUSD schools. Nearly 50% of SEIU Local 99 members are also parents or guardians of school-aged children.
