After consulting on legal issues in regard to the ACE “demand to bargain” on the El Marino adjunct program, CCUSD has declined to come to the table. According to District Superintendent Patti Jaffe, the district’s legal team offered that “[The adjuncts employed by ALLEM ] at El Marino … are not district employees. We do not have any control over their conditions of employment.”
ACE union leader Debbie Hamme is determined that the union will continue to seek control over the parent funded positions at the elementary schools. Hamme was quoted as saying ‘The next step would be that we file a grievance with the district and cite the areas of the contract we feel have been violated.”
School Board member Laura Chardiet spoke to Culver City Crossroads to say that she was “proud of all the parents for standing up for their rights, and very excited to see parents of all the schools working together.” Chardiet also noted that “It is important that people know that the decisions made by the district in regard to one school affect all the schools.”
The very real chance that the El Marino decision could shift the status of the adjunct program at Linwood E. Howe is one that the ParentsHaveRights.org group is looking to rally behind.
“I hope we can get the unanimous support of the school board for the policy change that Kathy Paspalis and I have been advocating,” stated Chardiet.
It is completely up to the folks at the LinHowe booster if they would like to make any changes to their adjunct program. The major point of the parent protests is: Each school booster should be able to decide which model of parent-funded services best fits their needs, the needs of their school community, and most importantly the needs of the students.
It is imperative that there be some clarification and guidelines so that the booster clubs can figure out the best way to provide the services that the District cannot supply. I look forward to working with representatives at EVERY ONE of the schools to determine how we as parents and as a community can best enhance the educational experience of our students.
Onward and upwards, folks, let’s all pitch in to sustain CCUSD.
I have always been known for brevity, so in response to ACE threatening to file a grievance against the district, I say, back off! The district has already spent thousands of dollars to research this and come to the conclusion that the ACE has no grounds to pursue this since the adjuncts are not district employees.
By filing a grievance now, how much more money will be spent by the district on this issue? With the district already on life support financially, that money should be spent on our future, our children.
I write this as a proud parent of El Marino graduates who particpated in the adjunct program.
Jeff Cooper
Perhaps I am missing something, but I am having a really hard time finding a rational reason behind ACE continuing to pursue unionization of the adjuncts. The attorneys have said their demand is baseless. Isn’t it time to concentrate instead on the needs of the current union members.
Think this through logically, assume that ACE succeeds in unionizing the 20 adjuncts and they become district employees. If the level of booster club fundraising drops, then who will make up the difference? That would be the District. Now the District has to decide if it can afford to keep the adjuncts which means that the District has to use its ever shrinking pool of money to cover the adjunct salaries in addition to its classified employee budget. Because ACE now has 20 additional members, that shrinking pool of money has to stretch further to cover more employees, which directly affects the current ACE members. Where is the upside to this???
It’s really disappointing that Debbie Hamme has signaled the intent to keep pushing to grab control over parent-funded instructional aides in Culver City, even after CCUSD’s lawyers have found those parent-funded aides to be non-employees of the district (and thus outside the scope of the district’s contract with her union).
It truly doesn’t have to be this way. If, indeed, Ms. Hamme is concerned about the community damage that could be wrought by this issue’s continued debate and adjudication into future months, she and her union have the power to make it all go away right now: they can simply accept the finding of the district’s lawyers and rejoin the rest of us in the important and necessary work of giving Culver City’s students the best education possible. It’s way more fun than grievance-filings and PERB court referrals, and it makes for a better world, besides.
There’s still time for Ms. Hamme and for ACE to be heroes in all this. Let it drop, guys. Please.
Patrick Meighan
Culver City, CA (and a Lin Howe parent)